Purcell: Welcome to all the pleasures (from Ode for St Cecilia's Day 1683), Z339

Henry Purcell’s career combined positions at the Chapel Royal and Westminster Abbey and as composer of music for the church and for the people. He is considered by some as the greatest English composer of all time – a position not challenged until the music of Edward Elgar some two centuries later.

‘Despite the abundance of younger stars … none of them yet match Chance’s intelligent delivery and supreme ability to get inside the English language’: so said The Guardian of Michael Chance, one of the world’s most celebrated countertenors and a leading exponent of historically informed performances of the Baroque repertoire.

The Choir of Clare College, founded in 1866, continues the venerable tradition of choral singing from Cambridge. As well as performing its liturgical function at daily services at Clare College Chapel, the choir has given premieres of works by composers from Herbert Howells to John Rutter, who was the college’s first music director.

Purcell’s life was relatively short – he died at 36. However, the range of music produced during his career (he is thought to have started composing aged nine) is remarkable. This collection spans both his sacred and secular writing, from his music for the funeral of Queen Mary (which was also performed at his funeral service in Westminster Abbey) and the Te Deum and Jubilate Deo written towards the end of his life, to songs and works written for the stage including music for the play Dioclesian.

Musical Concepts is pleased to announce the second release in one of the most ambitious early music reissue projects of all time — Alfred Deller: The Complete Vanguard Recordings. The series brings together every recording made by Alfred Deller – as solo countertenor, ensemble member of the Deller Consort, and conductor – for the legendary, enterprising Vanguard record label. These recordings created a sensation with their initial release, and have influenced and inspired three generations of music lovers, from casual listeners to the top tiers of performing artists and scholars.

Music of England's greatest composer was a speciality of Alfred Deller. His artistry was particularly welll suited to Purcell and Deller's role in establishing the greatness of this music cannot be exaggerated.

This collection includes iconic performances of solo vocal works with groundbreaking recordings of operas, sacred music and theatical works which Deller performs and conducts. Being at the forefront of the re-birth of the early music movement, he naturally attracted many of the other supreme artists of the time, all of whom went on to become great figures in their own right.

Well, strictly speaking this is not a new release, but as the original issue of this important and unique set has been out of stock for almost two years we think a reminder is called for.

The need to create new artwork caused the hiatus in repressing, but it also gave us the opportunity to re-think the packaging, and the set is now contained within a slim clamshell box with cardboard inner sleeves (rather than the original large box containing eight standard jewel cases with individual booklets for each disc). There is now one substantial and fully updated 72-page booklet which contains all the texts and a trilingual note.

This is the only complete recording of Purcell’s Odes and Welcome Songs and, as such, one of the treasures of the Hyperion catalogue—it makes a very welcome return.