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Margaret
Ritchie (soprano)
Alfred Deller, John Whitworth (Counter-Tenors)
Bruce Boyce (Baritone)
The St. Anthony Singers
L'Ensemble Orchestral de L'Oiseau Lyre -
Conductor: Anthony Lewis
Ruggero Gerlin (Harpsichord) Released
in ~1953 as a L'Oiseau Lyre LP and on London LP DL 53004
(Duration 23'06")
Symphony:
Largo-Allegro-Adagio
Come
Ye Sons Of Art, Away
Sound
The Trumpet, 'Til Around
Strike
The Viol, Touch The Lute
The
Day That Such A Blessing
Bid
The Virtues, Bid The Graces
These
Are The Sacred Charms
See
Nature, Rejoicing, Has Shown Us The Way
Play
Sound the Trumpet:
I
never got over how Deller and John Whitworth challenge each other
with roulades over Purcell's ceaseless accompanying rhythm...
- Bill Rosen
My
initial thoughts when listening to this recording were mixed. For large
parts of it the sound was adequate, though not wonderful But then I'd
hear a nasty edit and a section of really poor quality audio which tempted
me to abandon the whole excercise.
But
what I discovered in the process of restoring this recording was far more
interesting that I ever imagined. It's a perfect example of a new technology
not being properly understood or handled - rather than recording the musical
repeats, these were simply copied (badly) and spliced in (very badly)
from the original material!
Now
whilst we can't go back and re-record the poor-quality dubs used on the
vinyl release, we can now remake those edits, splice in the originals
without loss of quality, and do this to a degree of precision undreamed
of in the 1950's.
That,
coupled with the resolution of a number of major sonic flaws, especially
with regard to tonal balance, mean that we can now present the record
as it should have sounded 52 years ago, rather than the deeply flawed
product put out originally.
I've
not said anything here about the music itself, nor the performances here
- I'll leave that to the Bill Rosen's excellent review:
REVIEW
OF PURCELL "COME, YE SONS OF ART" (Deller, et al,)
When
I was young, I considered Purcell to be a rather feeble forerunner
of Handel. The recording that changed my mind and made me
realize that Purcell was great and original was a rather dullish-sounding
10" import in an unnatractive box featuring Arlfred Deller,
supposedly a man, singing in a register I associated with
women. I gradually got used to him and his colleague by means
of their magnificent duet "Sound the Trumpet". I
never got over how Deller and John Whitworth challenge each
other with roulades over Purcell's ceaseless accompanying
rhythm. What can one say about a set of singers that also
includes Margaret Ritchie and Bruce Boyce? The orchestra and
chorus perform with tremendous vigor.
In
order to be sure that I was not just suffering from nostalgic
dementia, I played a 1992 recording of the same work with
Robert King conducting the Oxford New College Choir and the
King's Consort. It was BORING! Everybody seemed to be just
singing the notes, whereas in the Deller recording everybody
seemed to mean the notes. Although it was in stereo, even
the sound was boring. The singers were very good, but the
whole affair seemed listless after the Deller recording under
review. I noticed that the King recording said, "Complete
Odes and Welcome Songs - Volume 8". Maybe they were really
yearning to do "West Side Story".
To
me, the Pristine Audio Restoration has made the Ancient L'Oiseau
Lyre recording equal or even superior to the 1992 Hyperion
in terms of musical punch, freedom from noise and detail.
It means that I can listen to an historical recording and
forget the historical part. It potentially opens up for me
what is perhaps the greatest period of classical performance
practice: 1926-1957.
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I
never got over how Deller and John Whitworth challenge each other
with roulades over Purcell's ceaseless accompanying rhythm...
- Bill Rosen
