Purcell: Sound the trumpet, beat the drum, Z335
Daniel Purcell: The Masque of Hymen
Purcell: The Indian Queen, Z630; Catch (To all lovers of music), Z262
This concert from The Sixteen (smaller than sixteen in vocal number, larger in vocal and instrumental number) and Harry Christophers brought Purcell’s The Indian Queen to the Wigmore Hall stage, along with an additional, slightly related act, The Masque of Hymen, by Henry’s brother Daniel; Henry’s 1687 welcome song for James II, Sound the trumpet, beat the drum; and a catch to words by the London music publisher John Carr, interpolated into the principal work on the programme. A full hall greeted these New(ish) Year performances with a warmth in welcome contrast to the temperatures outside. If I should still like at some point to see a (reasonably) faithful staging, with at least some of the play by Dryden and Sir Robert Howard that provides its actual dramatic content – one can dream – this concert performance was certainly preferable to the quagmire of self-indulgence into which Peter Sellars sank Purcell’s semi-opera nine years ago for ENO (and elsewhere).
As often when I listen to period instruments, it took my ears time to settle. It seemed to take a minute or two for performances to settle too, the opening Symphony first diffident then abrasive, yet counterpoint remained clear and directed. Hand on heart, I should much prefer to hear modern instruments, but there is little point attending something else and moaning about it. Sound the Trumpet offered many vocal virtues, a declamatory opening, assisted by rich continuo (harp included), then fuller orchestra and choir. There was no mistaking the very English, even Anglican, sound, likewise for the tenor and continuo ‘Crown the year, and crown the day’, but the fullness of sonority was impressive for a choir of only nine. The duet ‘Let Caesar and Urania [James and Mary of Modena] live’ possessed the right sort of Purcellian catchiness, and there was a fine sense overall of Restoration grandeur, not least in the choral climax to ‘What greater bliss can Fate bestow’ and the ensuing Chaconne.
If Daniel Purcell’s contribution was not always at the same level of inspiration – still less that of The Indian Queen proper – it was never less than competent and pleasant to hear, and some parts rather more than that. Catchy rhythms and melody came to the fore in the chorus ‘Come all, and sing great Hymen’s praise,’ and recorders offered welcome timbral variety later on. One soprano – I am not sure of her name – offered quite a spark in Cupid’s ‘The joys of wedlock soon are past’. Her reappearances throughout the concert proved consistent delights.
The still greater maturity of Henry's final years shone
through following the interval. There is surely little doubt that, performance issues
aside, The Indian Queen contains some of his finest music; that is
certainly once again how it felt here. The catch offered both audience
amusement and excellent musical virtues, following instrumental music in which finely
sprung rhythms seemed to act as agents of melodic and harmonic invention and
its revelation. Each of the musical acts impressed. In the first, the composer’s
inimitable combination of rigour and flexibility, so prophetic for twentieth-century
admirers, came strongly to the fore in dialogue between the Indian Boy and
Girl. The closing duet proved truly beguiling. The hissing of Envy and two
followers in Act II, and the darker tones of Ismeron’s recitative in Act III – ‘the
best piece of recitative in our language’ (Charles Burney) – offered in tandem
with the air ‘By the croaking of the toad’ a panorama of Purcellian invention. Advent
of woodwind and the plangent harmonies that introduced the Aerial spirits
contributed further to that impression, those spirits themselves (and
Christophers) giving a performance both pacy and aethereal. ‘They tell us that
you mighty powers above’ in the fourth act proved a highpoint of the evening,
as moving as it was mellifluous, whilst the fifth and final act went, if anything
further, ranging from choral grandeur to a melancholy that verged upon the
tragic. The English Orpheus was, as he has been over more than three centuries,
once again reborn.
