To have all these seminal recordings in one box is terrific. For many years they set the standards for Purcell recordings, vocally and instrumentally, with Gardiner being the conductor who took over from Benjamin Britten in taking the major works from the 1690s seriously…
The great thing about these volumes by The Sixteen is that they include much more than the obsequious welcome songs, written for minor royal comings and goings from court by a monarch who, after 1660, never ventured much further from Whitehall than Newmarket…
One of the splendid things about this disc is that, like the first three volumes in the series, it delivers much more than it promises. There is much more here than the two Welcome Songs for King Charles and his brother. There are anthems, instrumental interludes, drinking and theatre songs, several from the decade after Charles’s reign too. The Sixteen is also an excellent understatement. Nine singers are joined by a seventeen strong instrumental ensemble. The singers perform as soloists as well as choir, the players similarly…