Your events at Classical Events
Details
St Mary-le-More Church
Market Place
Wallingford
Oxfordshire
OX10 0EG
England
Tickets
Prices: £20.00
Book Tickets
Programme
Henry Purcell – Come Ye Sons of Art Away, Z.323: 'Sound the Trumpet'
~ Interval ~
Henry Purcell – Dido and Aeneas, Z.626
Performers
Jeremy Boughton – Conductor
Elinor Carter – mezzo-soprano
Lisa Gifford-Guy – soprano
Rhian Davies – mezzo-soprano
Programme Note
We close our season in customary fashion with the Wallingford-based ensemble, the Thames Consort, who, after last year’s concert of mainly sacred music, go distinctly secular with a concert performance of Purcell’s opera Dido and Aeneas, with mezzo-soprano, Elinor Carter singing the part of Dido, Lisa Gifford-Guy (soprano) as Belinda, her lady-in-waiting, with Rhian Davies as the Sorceress. First given in 1689, Purcell’s work is the first English language opera and charts the tragedy of Dido’s abandonment by Aeneas, plotted by the dastardly witches. There is plenty of colour and humour with a group of rustic sailors, a coven of witches and a ghostly spirit.
In the first half of the concert, we hear Purcell’s most popular ode: Come Ye Sons Of Art, written in 1694 to celebrate the birthday of Queen Mary II. This is one of the composer’s most appealing and tuneful scores, with an orchestra of strings, oboes and trumpets, containing such popular numbers as Sound The Trumpet and Bid The Virtues.
