Editor’s Choice Gramophone, December 2007

‘Victorious Love’ - Songs by Henry Purcell BIS SACD-1536 Carolyn Sampson, soprano Laurence Cummings, harpsichord & spinet Elizabeth Kenny, theorbo Anne-Marie Lasla, bass viol Sara Sexton & Andrea Morris, violins Jane Rogers, viola Recorded at St Paul’s Church, New Southgate, London, January 2006, Producer & Engineer: Jens Braun UK Release: October 6, 2007. Buy this CD on Amazon.co.uk Press Home

Sweeter than roses	Thrice happy lovers (An Epithalamium)
The fatal hour	The bashful Thames
When first Amintas sued for a kiss	I attempt from Love’s sickness to fly in vain
The Plaint	Oh! fair Cedaria
They tell us that you mighty powers above	Fairest isle
Man is for the woman made	O solitude
From silent shades	If love’s a sweet passion
Music for a while	The Blessed Virgin’s Expostulation
Now the night is chas’d away	An Evening Hymn
If music be the food of love

Two song anthologies published shortly after the death of Henry Purcell in 1695 have inspired this highly varied programme. Quoting the liner notes by lutenist Elizabeth Kenny, ‘recital programmes put together from the anthologies by the original purchasers would have mixed the genres without inhibition. Generally people sang what they liked and played what they liked, in any order they liked.’ It was this free-and-easy approach which incited soprano Carolyn Sampson and her co-performers to combine settings with accompaniments ranging from a single lute or spinet to string quartet with continuo. In Kenny’s words: ‘Seen from modern historically-informed or “authentic” perspectives a not-quite-familiar Purcell emerges, a composer of Gebrauchsmusik, flexibly scored and flexibly interpretable: virtuosic if the performers wish, innocently affecting if not.’ Including some of Purcell’s most well-loved songs as well as lesser-known gems, this collection has as its motto a line from the opening song Sweeter than roses: ‘What magic has victorious love’. As one of today’s most magic - not to say victorious - singers, whether on the opera stage or in the concert hall, Carolyn Sampson’s previous appearances on BIS have earned her high praise, for instance in American Record Guide (‘Her tone is extraordinarily beautiful: natural, warm and unforced, with almost superhuman vocal athleticism’) and from the reviewer in French magazine Classica-Répertoire, who described her performance of Bach’s Jauchzet Gott (on BIS-SACD-1471) in the following, glowing terms: ‘Carolyn Sampson interprets it in a voice which is quite light and angelic, but always present, and with a remarkable vocal ease and an infallible musicality.’ On this her first solo recital disc for BIS she is supported by some of the finest musicians in the field, including Anne-Marie Lasla (bass viol), Elizabeth Kenny (lute) and Laurence Cummings (harpsichord).

Please note: The music on this Hybrid Super Audio CD can be played back in Stereo (CD and SACD) as well as in 5.0 Surround sound (SACD).

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