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Track(s) taken from CDA66730

O solitude, my sweetest choice!, Z406

composer
1684/5
author of text
translator of text

Susan Gritton (soprano), The King's Consort
Recording details: March 1994
Orford Church, Suffolk, United Kingdom
Produced by Ben Turner
Engineered by Philip Hobbs
Release date: September 1994
Total duration: 5 minutes 32 seconds
 

Other recordings available for download

James Bowman (countertenor), The King's Consort, Robert King (conductor)
James Bowman (countertenor), The King's Consort, Robert King (conductor)
Clare Wilkinson (mezzo-soprano), Fretwork
Randall Scotting (countertenor), Stephen Stubbs (lute)

Reviews

‘Those who need all of Purcell's songs at their fingertips should invest in Hyperion's three-disk survey of secular songs, with outstanding performances by Barbara Bonney, Rogers Covey-Crump and James Bowman’ (The New York Times)
The text of O solitude was drawn by Purcell from three verses of Katherine Philips’s skilful translation of ‘La solitude’ by Antoine Girard de Saint-Amant (1594–1661). Philips, who died of smallpox in 1664, was one of the most popular poets of Purcell’s youth, and the theme of this poem (published in Philips’s Poems of 1667) had a personal appeal to her for, despite having literary friends in London, most of her life was lived in relative seclusion in Denbighshire.

Purcell’s setting may date from around 1684/5, and is based on twenty-eight repetitions of a ground bass – the same one on which he had based the delicious symphony to the anthem In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust. Over this hypnotic bass Purcell illustrates the visionary text with the most ravishing melody, covering the regularity of the bass with overlapping vocal phrases and wonderful harmonic variety. Word-painting abounds: ‘O solitude’ recurs throughout the song, set with a selection of desolately falling intervals, ‘restless’ meanders in its melisma, ‘today as fresh and green’ optimistically rises through the scale, the harmony of ‘their hard fate’ turns marvellously, ‘woes’ droop and ‘as only death can cure’ drops to the bottom of the voice. O solitude is one of Purcell’s masterpieces.

from notes by Robert King © 2003

Other albums featuring this work

Lovesick
Studio Master: SIGCD736Download onlyStudio Master FLAC & ALAC downloads available
Purcell & Blow: Countertenor duets
CDH55447
Purcell: The complete secular solo songs
CDS44161/33CDs Boxed set (at a special price) — Download only
The James Bowman Collection
KING3Super-budget price sampler — Download only
The Silken Tent
SIGCD826Download only
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