Composer: John Eccles, Johannes Hieronymous Kapsberger, Claudio Giovanni Antonio Monteverdi, Owain Park, Henry Purcell, Barbara Strozzi, Robert de Visée
Performer: Helen Charlston, Toby Carr
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Delphian
Catalogue: DCD34283
Release: 2022
Size: 949 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: cover
01. Purcell: O lead me to some peaceful gloom (from Bonduca or The British Heroine, Z574)
02. Strozzi: L’Eraclito amoroso, Op. 2 No. 14
03. Visée: Prélude
04. Eccles: Restless in thought
Purcell: Dido and Aeneas
05. Thy hand, Belinda
06. When I am laid in earth (Dido’s Lament)
Park: Battle Cry
07. I. Boudicca
08. II. Philomela in the forest
09. III. A singer’s ode to Sappho
10. IV. Marietta
11. Kapsberger: Libro quarto d’intavolatura di chitarone: Preluido V
12. Strozzi: La travagliata
13. Monteverdi: L’Arianna, SV 291: Lamento d’Arianna
14. Visée: Sarabande
15. Purcell: An Evening Hymn ‘Now that the sun hath veiled his light’, Z193
This powerful yet understated recital of modern and seventeenth-century works aims to revisit but also to re-balance the obsession of earlier music with female abandonment and lament. The stories of women such as Dido and Ariadne have been told and retold throughout history. Mezzo-soprano Helen Charlston reconsiders the assumed helplessness of those often seen as being left behind by male adventure and success. A recent work commissioned for Charlston from the composer Owain Park further takes up the challenge of giving “abandoned women” their own platform, as well as exploring new possibilities for an instrumental pairing – that of voice and theorbo – that remains little explored in contemporary music.