PURCELL: FAIRY QUEEN & THE PROPHETESS ORCHESTRAL SUITES – LE CONCERT DES NATIONS, SAVALL (HYBRID SACD) ALIA VOX

The English were latecomers to the opera. Following the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, one might have expected the theatrical establishment to embrace the new genre enthusiastically: after all, things foreign were once again in fashion. Charles II himself established a troupe of string players in frank imitation of Louis XIV’s Vingt-Quatre Violons du Roi, while in France itself, Italian opera, having been successfully transplanted, soon thrived in its new soil. But for some reason, the first attempts at popularizing opera in England (whether in Italian or in the vernacular) were failures. Instead, the practice of introducing incidental music within plays and masques assumed increasing importance. Such music could either set the action (in the manner of an Overture), comment upon it (in the case of vocal numbers), or else accompany danced items; but in any case its relationship to the plot was often peripheral. Midway between this simpler kind of incidental music and the full-blown opera stands the semi-opera, an indigenous genre borne largely out of fashionable aversion to opera itself: after all, the expense of a fully-staged production of The Fairy Queen would have been at least comparable to operatic extravaganzas on the continent.

THE PROPHETESS (1690)1. First Musick 2’072. Second Musick 1’563. Symphony for Trumpets & Violins 1’544. Retornella 1’035. Dance of the Furies: Soft music – Dance 2’166. The Chair Dance 1’287. Retornella 3’40THE FAIRY QUEEN (1692)The First Act Suite8. First music: Prelude (1) 2’249. Hornpipe (2) 1’0210. Second Music: Air (3) 1’0011. Rondeau (4) 1’2912. Overture (5) 2’4013. First Act Tune: Jig (8) 1’07The Second Act Suite14. A Prelude (9) 1’0815. “A bird’s Prelude” (10) 1’3716. Echo (12) 2’2817. A Fairies Dances (13) 1’5018. A Dance of the Followers of Night (18) 2’0819. Second Act Tune: Air (19) 1’22The Third Act Suite20. Prelude “Love’s a Sweet Passion” (20) 3’0621. Overture: Symphony while the swans come foward (21) 2’0422. Dance for the Fairies (22) 1’0723. Dance for the Green men (23) 1’5624. A dance for the Haymakers (27) 1’5425. Third Act Tune: hornpipe (29) 1’03The Fourth Act Suite26. Symphony: Prelude, Canzona, Largo, Allegro, Adagio, Allegro (30) 6’0827. Entry of Phoebus (33) 1’0728. Fourth Act Tune: Air (40) 1’05The Fifth Act Suite29. Prelude (41) 1’2230. Entry Dance (44) 1’5231 Symphony (45) 0’5232. Monkey’s Dance (49) 2’3033. Chaconne: Dance for the Chinese Man and Woman (57) 1’0434. “Fifth Act Tune” (59) 1’47Les numéros entre parenthèses correspondent à la numérotation de la partition