Traditional Songs English Madrigals & Airs European Vocal Music Vocal Music of Henry Purcell Alfred Deller, countertenor
*** “In songs which demand a simple line, his sweet pure tone is ravishing and the performances are all glorious examples… with the songs played in groups, Deller’s lovely tone and natural artistry will give great pleasure…” Penguin Guide on The Three Ravens
“Alfred Deller’s singing is beguiling and timeless. … Music for a while [is] from a number of songs which exhibit his essential mastery: everything from accuracy of pitching and magical floating phrases to subtlety of colour and expressive resource.” — Gramophone
Alfred Deller’s recorded career could only have developed in the way that it did at a label like Vanguard with its founder and owner Seymour Solomon at its helm. Independent record labels, like most small businesses, thrive on a connection between an owner and their obsessions. Seymour Solomon loved baroque and renaissance music at a time when the World’s exposure to music of those eras was generally much more narrow than now. Today’s landscape reveals concrete superhighways to Hildegard von Bingen where there were once cow paths.
It is quite a feat to distill this monumental body of work into one CD. Luckily, Solomon and Deller already did the work with a double LP, The Art of Alfred Deller, which provided the basis for this selection covering as it does the range of his work.
TRADITIONAL SONGS The Three Ravens / The Cuckoo / Barbara Allen / Hey, Ho, the Wind and the Rain / I Will Give My Love an Apple / The Oak and the Ash / King Henry / Greensleeves
ENGLISH MADRIGALS & AIRS Anon.: Sumer is icumen in / Morley: Now is the Month of Maying / Byrd: Come, Pretty Babe / Wilbye: Thus Saith My Cloris Bright / Weelkes: To Shorten Winter’s Sadness / Parsons: Pandolpho / Morley: In Dew of Roses / Handel: Eternal Source of Light Divine
EUROPEAN VOCAL MUSIC Lasso: Matona Mia Cara / Monteverdi: Lasciate Mi Morire / Passereau: Il est Bel et Bon / Saracini: Da Te Parto / Josquin: Deploration de Jehan Okeghem / Schütz: Erhöre Mich
VOCAL MUSIC OF PURCELL Music for a While / I Attempt from Love’s Sickness to Fly / Sound the Trumpet / Secrecie’s Song / Mystery’s Song / Fairest Isle / If Music be the Food of Love
