Luogo e data di registrazione		Vienna (Austria) - maggio 1954
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Produced by		Seymour Solomon
	Engineer		Franz Plott
	Prima Edizione LP		Vanguard - The Bach Guild | BG-547 | 1 LP - durata 52' 42" | (p) 1955
	Edizione CD		Vanguard Classics | 08 2029 71 | 1 CD - durata 52' 42" | (c) 1994 | ADD
	Cover Art		-
	Note		Billboard, 2 July 1955

The latter half of the seventeenth century brought important changes to English music, changes that were to stifle native expression for many generations to come. Though Puritan inhibitions were cast aside with the accession of Charles II, art, newly emancipated, yielded to the extravagance and vanities of a sovereign who had acquired strong French leanings. Charles modelled his court on that of Louis XIV; he imported foreign musicians, created his own Vingt-quatre violons du Roi in which the "vulgar" violin mingled with the soft-spoken viol, and introduced lavish entertainments in the French manner, setting the pattern for the re-opened public theatres where respectable old plays were turned into glorified musical revues. By the turn of the century all resistance to the flood of foreign influence was swept away. The venerable John Jenkins whose chamber music for viols had been breatly in demand for over thirty years, now wrote sonatas for the violins and dance suites in the lighter vein. Even the conservative Matthew Locke, "the most considerable master of musick after Jenkins fell off," and composer of a "magnifick consort of four partes after the old style which was the last of the kind made... conformed at last," says Roger North (Memoirs, 1728), "to the modes of his time... and composed to the semi-operas divers pieces of vocall and instrumental entertainment, with very good success...". Purcell's youthful preoccupation with fantasias for viols (he wrote fifteen of them in from three to seven parts) twenty years after Locke's "last," shows how deeply rooted was this traditional English form of music-making. Although in idiom and technique they follow earlier works of this genre, Purcell's fantasias are infused with an intensity of expression that is obiously by the new style emanating from Italy. His great dramatic works were yet to come; in these he stands alone as the only Englishman whose creative genius was strong enough to meet or surpass anything that came from the continent. Had he lived beyond his brief thirty-six years, the story of English music might well have been different. The Restoration theatre given a new lease on life, revived Shakespeare, and other renowned Elizabethans, "adapting" them to the taste of the time. Every opportunity was taken to make use of song, dance, and the elaborate machinery of the Parisian stage. Purcell's Faerie Queene, based on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dreams, is such an adaptation. It is a masque-like opera and a complete distortion of the original play. The anonymous librettist has rearranged scenes, invented verses for musical interludes and generally altered and disfigured Shakespear's text so that it has become hardly recognizable. Yet for such a vehicle Purcell provided some of the finest and most effective music he ever wrote for the theatre. The piece was first produced in 1692. The wit and charm of the various spectacular and choreographic episodes have fascinated modern producers, who since the rediscovery of the manuscript in 1903 have mounted a number of successful revivals in England, Germany and Belgium. An interesting re-adaptation on the work by Constant Lambert in collaboration with Professor E. J. Dent and others, was presented with the Sadler's Wells Ballet at Covent Garden in 1946. Mystery's Song and Secrecie's Song appear seccessively in Act II of the Faerie Queene (Purcell Society Edition, 1903). The former is accompanied by 'cello and harpsichord, the latter by two recorders and harpsichord. The Plaint was added to Act V for the opera's revival in 1693. It is a song of pathos sung over a chromatic ground bass with a beautiful obbligato line for violin - a miracle of sustained expression. Of the four Purcell Odes written for St. Cecilia's Day, the earliest and one of the best is Welcome to all the Pleasures (1683). In the song Here the Deities approve which follows the first chorus, a three measure ground, played eighteen times, provides a bass for the air as well as for the long instrumental postlude. An arrangement of the song appeared in the second part of  Musick's Handmaid (1689) under the title of "A New Ground." Though the harpsichord solo pieces of Purcell are not among his important work they are nevertheless characteristic and individual. The most interesting are the little Suites published posthumously by Mrs. Purcell with a dedication to Princess Anne and entitled "A Choice Collection of Lessons for the Harpsichord or Spinnet," London, 1696. The air Here let my Life comes from the chamber cantata If ever I more Riches did desire. It is scired for violins with a continuo and is a beatiful example of the aptness of text and music. Since from my Dear Astrea's Sight was apparently written for the revival of the opera The Prophetess, or the History of Dioclesian, in 1691 or 1692 and seems to have been intended for inclusion in the last act. Notes by Sydney Beck, Music Division, New York, Public Library ALFRED DELLER is one of the few contemporary masters of the counter-tenor (pr male alto) voice, for which Purcell and Bach wrote some of their most beatiful music. He is also one of the most distinguished modern interpreters of Elizabethan and Baroque music. Born at Margate, Kent, in 1912, he won a reputation as a boy soprano and then moved easily into the alto register. A favorite at British music festivals, his artistry has also won him great success on the continent, notably in the music of Dowland, Purcell, Handel and Bach. Of his art the Manchester Guardian wrote, "His production of this unusual voice, and his technique, are almost flawless, and his phrasing is unsurpassed for imagination and sensibility." The Birmingham Post wrote: "Mr. Deller , whose wondrous voice graced both Purcell and Danyel, is one of the supreme British singers of our generation." Alfred Deller, who is an exclusive Vanguard-Bach Guild recording artist, has also recorded ELIZABETHAN AND JACOBEAN MUSIC, including music by Dowland, Morley, Bartlett, Johnson, Parsons and Farnaby (BG-539), and J. S. BACH: SOLO CANTATAS NO. 54 Widerstehe doch, and NO. 170, Vergnügte Ruh, (BG-550). GUSTAV LEONHARDT is the renowned Dutch harpsichordist, organist, Baroque scholar, and professor at the Vienna Academy, whose harpsichord recordings of Bach's ART PF FUGUE (BG-532/3) and GOLDBERG VARIATIONS (BG-536), and organ recordings of SEVENTEENTH CENTURY ORGAN MUSIC (BG-529) are classics of their kind. He performs the harpsichord solos on this recordings. The Leonhardt Baroque Ensemble is made up of outstanding musicians devoted to the study of Renaissance and Baroque music. On this recordings, Elizabeth Schaftlein and Gertrude Soukup play the recorders, Marie Leonhardt plays the baroque violin, and Nicolaus Harnoncourt the baroque 'cello. The Consort of Viols is made up of Eduard Melkus and Alice Hoffelner, treble viols, and Nicolaus Harnoncourt and Gustav Leonhardt, bass viols.