England's Golden Age from 3-7 June

[Richard Tarleton]

An excellent week - and with Jordi Savall as well, a great week for EM enthusiasts.

Life was a bit basic, though - "vomited in a mess of pottage".......

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Hmmm. I nearly programme, which had too much of that prissy, insipid performing style that some English performers think is appropriate for Elizabethan Madrigals (the sort of thing that makes me think of Lucky Jim) - and Ian Bostridge's It Was a Lover was one of those performances that had me thinking "Oh, lor' not another damn verse!!!" No wonder there were all those sea voyages of discovery if this was how the Music was actually performed - I'd risk malaria in Virginia to get away from this!

But, I'm glad I stuck with it: much better performances, and some truly glorious Music, in the rest of the week. The Gibbons programme yesterday was particularly fine, and Thomas Tomkins today was a real find for me. The biographic info (seeing that RT has brought it up ... ) might have been a bit spare ... but with the miscellany of composers, I suppose that was bound to be the case.

Four excellent programmes.

[Richard Tarleton]

Ian Bostridge's It Was a Lover was one of those performances that had me thinking "Oh, lor' not another damn verse!!!"

Bostridge in 19th and 20thC song - marmite, take it or leave it. He is totally unsuited to this repertoire, with his fruity, precious (prissy even better) enunciation, and I wish he wouldn't.

brought it up ...

Four excellent programmes.