Portrait of Henry Purcell by Johann (after) Closterman
Purcell: King Arthur
VOICES & INSTRUMENTS
Tutor: John Hancorn
Location: Didsbury Baptist Church
Reviewer: Valerie Pedlar
It was a fine sunny day outside, and Didsbury Baptist Church offers a warm, comfortable environment, so trying to sing Purcell’s famous Chorus of Cold People from King Arthur as if we were freezing was more of a challenge than it would have been in some of the churches I’ve sung in!
This workshop, led by John Hancorn with his usual efficiency, charm and humour, was well attended. A good-sized choir (about 40 at a guess) was accompanied by a small orchestra of five strings (including a mellifluous archlute) and five recorders, who made a splendid job, not just of the accompaniments, but of sight-reading several of the purely instrumental pieces. The solo numbers were sung by Deborah Catterall (whose group, Vox Aurum, is performing Purcell’s Fairy Queen in the coming weeks), and David Edmundson. And two of Deborah’s students, Sarah Cardwell and Jennie Coates, sang the beautiful duet, ‘Two daughters of this aged stream are we’. The best-known piece from this curious semi-opera, ‘Fairest isle’, is set for solo soprano, but John gave it to all the sopranos – and what a pleasure it was to sing, safely surrounded by other sopranos! Nevertheless, he did invite any brave souls who wanted to sing solo to have their moment; three brave sopranos took up the offer and, each taking a phrase, sang beautifully.
English semi-opera is a strange hybrid, combining spoken dialogue (since it was not considered seemly for high-born characters to sing), dance and sung sections, plus elaborate staging and spectacular effects. As the recent production of The Fairy Queen at Gyndebourne showed, it can work wonderfully well on stage. But I have never come across a staged production of King Arthur, nor even a concert version, so this NWEMF workshop was a wonderful opportunity for getting acquainted with this somewhat neglected work. Obviously the visual dimension had to be abandoned, but we worked through the piece from beginning to end, and in order to give us some sense of the dramatic context for the musical numbers, John read narrative passages – not the synopses provided in the Novello 1972 vocal score, nor Dryden’s original text, but an adaptation (in verse) that had been written for a Dartington Summer School by Timothy Knapman. This was helpful and frequently amusing.
The choruses don’t present the same sight-reading challenges as most of the music, generally of an earlier period, that we encounter at these NWEMF workshops. So John was able to devote some time to niceties of phrasing and to dramatic presentation of a text that was, for a change, in English. And we could appreciate Purcell’s skill in setting the words. It was a highly enjoyable day. Thanks to Mark Flinn for all the work he put into organizing it, to the soloists and instrumentalists, and to John for leading us through this semi-opera with such flair.
Valerie Pedlar
First published in June 2015 Newsletter
