Jennifer Vyvyan, Elsie Morison, Thomas Hemsley, Peter Pears, Peter Boggis, John Whitworth, Trevor Anthony, Anthony Lewis - Purcell: The Fairy Queen (1957)

Tracklist

01. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 1-Prelude
02. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 1-Hornpipe
03. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 1-Air
04. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 1-Rondeau
05. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 1-Overture
06. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 1-Come let us leave the town
07. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 1-Scene of the Drunken poet
08. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 1-First Act Tune-Jig
09. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 2-Prelude
10. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 2-Come all-Prelude
11. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 2-May the God of Wit inspire
12. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 2-Echo
13. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 2-Now join your warbling
14. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 2-Entrance of Night: Sing while we trip it on the Green
15. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 2-Mystery: See, even Night herself is here
16. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 2-Secrecy: I am come to lock all fast
17. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 2-Sleep: One charming night-Hush, no more
18. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 2-Dance for the followers of Night
19. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 2-Second Act Tune: Air
20. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 3-If Love's a sweet passion
21. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 3-Symphony while the Swans come forward
22. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 3-Dance for the Fairies
23. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 3-Dance for the Green Men
24. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 3-Ye gentle spirits of the air appear
25. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 3-Dialogue between Coridon and Mopsa: Now the maids and the men
26. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 3-When I have often heard
27. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 3-Dance for the Haymakers
28. Purcell: The Fairy Queen, Z.629 / Act 3-A thousand, thousand ways we'll find
29. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 3-Third Act Tune-Hornpipe
30. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 4-Symphony
31. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 4-Now the night
32. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 4-Let the fifes and clarions
33. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 4-Entry of Phoebus
34. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 4-When a cruel long winter
35. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 4-Hail! Great Parent
36. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 4-Thus the ever grateful spring
37. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 4-Here's the Summer, sprightly, gay
38. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 4-See, see, my many colour'd fields
39. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 4-Now Winter comes slowly
40. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 4-Fourth Act Tune: Air
41. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 5-Prelude
42. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 5-Epithalamium-Thrice happy Lovers
43. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 5-The Plaint
44. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 5-Entry Dance
45. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 5-Symphony
46. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 5-Thus the gloomy world
47. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 5-Thus happy and free
48. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 5-Yes, Xansi
49. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 5-Monkey's Dance
50. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 5-Hark! How all things
51. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 5-Hark! the Ech'ing Air
52. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 5-Sure the dull God
53. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 5-Prelude-See, I obey-Turn thine eyes-My torch
54. Purcell: The Fairy Queen-Act 5-Chaconne-They shall be happy

Made during February 1957 in the West Hampstead studios of Decca, this was the first-ever complete recording of The Fairy Queen. Suites and individual dances from Purcell’s masque had been played and recorded by chamber and even symphonic ensembles, and songs such as ‘One Charming Night’ were popular with both English singers and audiences, but Purcell’s music was still principally encountered in liturgical contexts, where his anthems and occasionally odes were given solemn and stately performances.

The wit and inventiveness of Purcell as a dramatic composer had been overlooked by the musical public at large, therefore, until Anthony Lewis took on the ambitious task of preparing this recording. He did so as honorary secretary of the Purcell Society, and as a professor of music at the University of Birmingham: both positions which allowed him to explore music of the early Baroque from a practical as well as a scholarly perspective.

The scale of the challenge was outlined by Lewis in the booklet accompanying this new remastering. The complete score comprises 50 separate numbers, deploying a large ensemble of voices and instruments with astonishing freshness and variety to match the quickly changing moods of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. However, Lewis was able to prepare the recording in conjunction with a staged performance in Birmingham at the University’s Barber Institute. This featured several of the same soloists, and the cast is a distinguished one, thoroughly coached by Lewis in principals of Purcellian style while vocally distinctive in their own right.

Reviews at the time recognised the special value of this first Fairy Queen: most of all for the many delights to be savoured in Purcell’s score, but also for the lively conducting of Lewis, the crisp playing of the Boyd Neel Orchestra and the sure and graceful contributions of the soloists. In the English-speaking world, the recording had the field to itself for decades. Benjamin Britten recorded his edition of the masque in 1972: omitting several numbers from Purcell’s original, and carrying over from this ‘original’ cast not only Peter Pears but also Jennifer Vyvyan, who had in the intervening years become a firm favourite at Aldeburgh (this recording is due for reissue in 2018).

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