Purcell: A New Ground in E minor, Z. T682

In his latest solo recital for harmonia mundi, Richard Egarr turns to the rarely heard harpsichord Suites by Henry Purcell. In his beautifully shaped reading, these eight muscular and quirky works, published the year after Purcell's death, are interspersed with seven shorter pieces built on a recurring pattern - a chaconne, a rondeau, and five 'grounds'. Richard Egarr has worked with all types of keyboards and is in great demand both as soloist and as accompanist. His collaboration with long-time duo partner Andrew Manze has been setting new performance standards since 1984. He is music director of the Academy of Ancient Music, and they recently recorded Handel's Organ Concertos Op.4 together, nominated for a Gramophone Award 2008. Handel Concerti Grossi Op. 3 won the Baroque Award in 2007.

Few of the many recordings devoted to Henry Purcell have succeeded in capturing all the richness and diversity of musical instruments of the late 17th century.

Here well-known pieces by Purcell played take on an entirely new and unexpected colouring, while also serving to highlight the theatricality of the vocal airs.

Johann Adolph Hasse: Reloaded (OC830 featuring Valer Barna-Sabadus) was enthusiastically reviewed by critics and was included on the German Record Critics’ ‘Best List’.

This title was recorded in September 2012 and features an all English programme of songs, beautifully sung and recorded in the Himmelfahrtskirche in Munich.

It is unusual for Priory to record harpsichord music, but this outstanding instrument by Andrew Garlick, as played by Andrew Arthur, makes for a terrific recital from Trinity Hall.

Emma Kirkby and Jakob Lindberg have devised a programme which takes in a wide spectrum of emotions: from the pastoral joyfulness of By a fountain and the melancholy of In darkness let me dwell, we are led via the desperation and drama of Bess of Bedlam to the conviction expressed in Music for a while that music has the power to vanquish even death. Interspersing the songs are lute solos, including Dowland’s immortal Lachrimae, but also Lindberg’s own transcriptions of Purcell pieces such as The Cibell and the Echo Dance of the Furies from Dido and Aeneas, performed on Lindberg’s unique four-hundred year old instrument. Kirkby and Lindberg are musical partners of long standing, with earlier collaborations on BIS including Musique and Sweet Poetrie (BISSACD1505), a survey of the lute song across Europe around the year 1600. ‘A grand tour conducted by a pair of ideal guides’ was how the reviewer in Gramophone described that disc, while his colleague in International Record Review found that the ‘undeniably glorious performances’ made the disc ‘a journey well worth making’.

This programme, recorded in May 2009, spans the Baroque and Classical periods and features suites and sonatas by three of the supreme composers who celebrate significant anniversaries in 2009: Purcell, Haydn and Handel.

In Trevor Pinnock’s words: “Initially the idea of marrying these three composers seemed crazy. But then I realised the connections. How much Handel was influenced by Purcell, incorporating Purcellian progressions in his music. And how much Haydn had been influenced by Handel. I saw the link from Purcell’s choral music to Handel’s oratorios, which in turn inspired Haydn to produce ‘The Creation’ and ‘The Seasons’. But what tipped the balance for me was that story of Haydn, when in London, accompanying a song on the pianoforte by Purcell, and saying proudly that he did it all by himself. I found it fascinating that he’d actually touched music by Purcell in 1790 - and that he’d found it very difficult. As a musician, I could feel for him”

“Once in a while a reviewer receives a record that strikes him as being so exactly right that, without switching off his critical faculties, he finds himself just sitting back and enjoying it. In an ideal world this would doubtless always be so; but I must thank Trevor Pinnock … for this particular contribution to my personal Utopia” Gramophone Magazine

The civil war that culminated in the decapitation of King Charles I was a dark period of English history; yet, in musical terms, the Puritans led by Oliver Cromwell did not do as much damage as one might have imagined. By prohibiting public music-making in places of workship and theatres, they contributed to the development of the practice of chamber music between friends in the home.

The organ of the Ebersmunster Abbey Church, built in 1730 by Andreas Silbermann, is a masterpiece of the Paris-trained Saxon organ builder and one of the most beautiful organs in the world. It is one of only two almost completely preserved instruments by Silbermann. This recording is dedicated to compositions which have a special relationship to the sound ideals of the French baroque organ-building school.