Handel THe TriumpH of Time & TruTH
ludus Baroque
Richard Neville-Towle
Sophie Bevan soprano
Mary Bevan soprano
Tim Mead countertenor
Ed Lyon tenor
William Berger bass
Recorded on 4-7 August 2013
in Canongate Kirk, Edinburgh, by kind permission of the Minister and Kirk Session
Producer/Engineer: Paul Baxter
24-bit digital editing: Adam Binks
24-bit digital mastering: Paul Baxter
Harpsichord & organ preparation: William Hendry
Design: John Christ
Booklet editor: Henry Howard
Cover image: Stewart Gee
Session photography © Delphian Records
Delphian Records Ltd – Edinburgh – UK
www.delphianrecords.co.uk
THe TriumpH of Time & TruTH
George Frideric Handel (1685–1759)
Sophie Bevan soprano – Beauty
Mary Bevan soprano – Deceit
Tim Mead countertenor – Counsel/Truth
Ed Lyon tenor – Pleasure
William Berger bass – Time
Ludus Baroque
Oliver Webber orchestra leader
Will Dawes chorus leader
Richard Neville-Towle conductor
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1 Overture [4:04] Act One
2 Chorus: Time is supreme [3:14]
3 Recitative (Beauty): How happy could I linger here [0:13]
4 Air (Beauty): Faithful mirror [4:46]
5 Recitative (Pleasure/Beauty): Fear not! I, Pleasure, swear [0:35]
6 Air (Pleasure): Pensive sorrow [5:17]
7 Air (Beauty): Sorrow darkens ev’ry feature [4:06]
8 Air and Chorus: Come, come! Live with Pleasure [1:07] Rachel Redmond soprano
9 Recitative (Time/Counsel): Turn, look on me! Behold old Time [0:30]
10 Air (Counsel): The beauty smiling [3:58]
11 Recitative (Pleasure/Beauty/Time/Counsel): Our pow’rs we all will try [0:23]
12 Air (Beauty): Ever-flowing tides of pleasure [4:39]
13 Recitative (Time): The hand of Time pulls down [0:23]
14 Air (Time): Loathsome urns [7:14]
15 Chorus: Strengthen us, O Time [2:04]
16 Recitative (Deceit): Too rigid the reproof you give [0:24]
17 Air (Deceit): Happy Beauty [4:17]
18 Air (Deceit) and Chorus: Happy, if still they reign in pleasure [2:59]
19 Recitative (Counsel/Time/Pleasure): Youth is not rich in Time [0:44]
20 Air (Time) and Chorus: Like the shadow, life ever is flying [2:50]
Act Two (beginning) 21 Chorus: Pleasure submits to pain [4:57] Rachel Redmond, Emily Mitchell, Libby Crabtree, Martha McLorinan soprano, Catherine Backhouse, Judy Brown alto
22 Recitative (Pleasure/Beauty): Here Pleasure keeps his splendid court [0:38] 23 Chorus: Oh, how great the glory [3:06] 24 Air (Pleasure) and Chorus: Dryads, sylvans, with fair Flora [6:03]
Air (Deceit): No more complaining [2:35]
Air (Deceit): Pleasure’s gentle Zephyrs playing [3:35]
Air (Beauty): Come, O Time [3:33] Total playing time (CD1) [78:28]
Act Two (continued)
1 Air (Counsel): Mortals think that Time is sleeping [7:27]
2 Recitative (Time): You hoped to call in vain [0:48]
3 Air (Time): False destructive ways of Pleasure [4:16]
4 Recitative (Counsel/Time): Too long deluded you have been [0:51]
5 Air (Pleasure): Lovely Beauty, close those eyes [3:17]
6 Recitative (Deceit): Seek not to know [0:13]
7 Air (Deceit): Melancholy is a folly [3:53]
8 Recitative (Time/Beauty): What is the present hour? [0:39]
9 Air (Beauty): Fain would I, two hearts enjoying [1:45]
10 Recitative (Counsel): Vain the delights of age or youth [0:30]
11 Air (Counsel): On the valleys [4:05]
12 Recitative (Time/Beauty/Counsel): Not venial error this [1:19]
13 Chorus: Ere to dust is changed thy beauty [1:58]
Recitative (Deceit): Once more I thee address
Air (Deceit): Charming Beauty [6:03]
Recitative (Beauty): Tempt me no more [0:25]
Air (Deceit): Sharp thorns despising [2:44] 19 Recitative (Counsel/Beauty): Regard her not [0:48] 20 Air (Beauty): Pleasure! My former ways resigning [4:02]
Chorus: Comfort them, O Lord [4:38] 22 Recitative (Beauty/Pleasure/Counsel): Since the immortal mirror I possess [0:26] 23 Air (Counsel): Thus to earth, thou false, delusive, flatt’ring mirror [2:51]
Recitative (Beauty): O mighty Truth! [1:21] 25 Air (Time): From the heart that feels my warning [6:21]
Recitative (Beauty/Pleasure): Pleasure, too long associates we have been [0:27]
Air (Pleasure): Like clouds, stormy winds them impelling [5:01]
Recitative (Beauty): She’s gone; and Truth, descending [0:47]
Air (Beauty): Guardian angels [6:03]
Chorus: Hallelujah [2:02]
‘It has no real plot …’; ‘the frigid text obviously did not inspire Handel …’: thus modern scholarship (represented here in the words of J. Merrill Knapp and Winton Dean) used to dismiss the last of Handel’s oratorios, composed – or rather compiled, for there are multiple sources – in 1757. But The Triumph of Time and Truth is also in a sense among the first of Handel’s works, for its core remains the 1707 text by Handel’s Roman patron Cardinal Benedetto Pamphilj, Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno. And between 1707 and 1757 there is indeed a ‘plot’: the life of Handel himself.
Herein lies the genius of the work: it is at one level an allegory of the warfare of moral feeling versus pleasurable senses, for all men at all times in all places (and all women too, for Beauty was from the beginning depicted as female). It also, however, functions as a personal summation of life’s pattern for Handel himself: the once-handsome young man, whose fantastic appetite for the pleasures of the table and the ravages of a long life led inexorably to corpulence and ill-health, yet who was a devout Christian and at the end a benefactor of the orphaned poor.
The text explores every device employed by Pleasure to beguile Beauty into a perpetual dependence on Youth; but ultimately the mirror of self-regard is dashed to the ground and Beauty accepts the divine order: change
and decay. Though couched in classical garb –dryads, sylvans, Flora, Iris and Aurora all frolic about – the work at the end revealed to its fashionable London audience its true theme, as angels appear and the oratorio concludes in St Paul’s Christian doctrine of faith, hope and love, with a glorious final ‘Hallelujah!’
This reflection on the ephemeral nature of beauty of course embraces pre-Christian notions of temporality too; however, recent research has been able to anchor its inspiration in the specific context of Catholic devotion in post-Tridentine Rome. It is the emphasis on penitence (‘Adieu, vain world!’) which is the turning point for Beauty; and in Cardinal Pamphilj’s eyes, that exemplar was implicitly the figure of the archetypal fallen woman, St Mary Magdalene. Despite her lascivious connotations as the ‘beata peccatrix ’, the Magdalene remains a saint by virtue of her penance. Pamphilj, in whose magnificent art collection is preserved a Caravaggio painting of Mary Magdalene, was archpriest of St John Lateran in Rome, resting-place of the headless alleged corpse of St Mary Magdalene, and thus likely had a particular devotion to her.1
Scroll forward (past the beefed-up 1737 London version, HWV 46b) to 1757. The new libretto is a
1 There are six more or less complete corpses on record claimed to be St Mary Magdalene, the principal one at Vézélay in France having been destroyed by Protestants in the sixteenth century.
free English translation of Pamphilj’s text by the scholarly Anglican vicar, Thomas Morell. In his hand the Anglican emphasis, the semi-Pelagian idea that by his conduct the sinner may be justified, comes to the fore: Act II ends
Hear the call of Truth and Duty And to Folly bid adieu.
Ere to dust is changed thy beauty, Change thy heart, and good pursue.
Such a formulation, stripped of any overt Catholic emphasis on grace or Lutheran insistence on faith, has been echoed down the centuries in English pulpits by finger-wagging vicars. Thus the text, despite its literally Romish origins, serves to pluck the Protestant heartstrings of the bewigged and bejewelled audience of the Haymarket Theatre, for whom three performances in 1757, and one even longer version in 1758, were prepared.
What effect this extended contemplation of mortality had on them we know not, but for Handel himself more evidence can be adduced. The complaint has been made that the choral movements added into this late version fit uneasily with the pace of Pamphilj’s morality play. In particular, the chorus ‘Comfort them, O Lord’ is lifted directly from the 1749 Foundling Hospital Anthem (HWV 268), an insertion which the mid-twentieth-century Handel scholar Watkins Shaw deemed
‘pointless, other than [in] separating two consecutive airs for Beauty …’. But considering that Handel had generously supported the Hospital during his lifetime, and bequeathed (by the third codicil of his August 1757 will) ‘a fair copy of the Score and all the parts of my Oratorio called The Messiah’ to this institution,2 it is entirely to the point. Handel, himself by now a caricature of self-indulgence (a pig playing the organ with a mirror held to his portly face in Joseph Goupy’s cartoon), marks by this sole late adaptation (all else is pre-1737) a public atonement by good works, a devotion to the abandoned which would be in time be revealed in his private will. As the very title of the Foundling Hospital Anthem puts it, ‘Blessed are they that considereth the poor and needy’.
‘Resigned to heaven above … / Strong in faith, in hope, in love.’ The paradox of the inward and the outward Handel resides in this neglected work: in part a compilation, a tour of his musical landscape, but also a masterwork of the Baroque tension between ‘Sein und Schein ’ [reality and illusion]. Perhaps, too, Handel’s thoughts at the end of his long life turned, not only to the follies of pleasure, wealth and beauty, but towards lost loves and childhood. All the panegyrics heaped on the composer at
2 The tradition that King George II rose at the ’Hallelujah’ Chorus fails because there is no recorded instance of his attending a performance of Messiah. However, as the scholar Donald Burrows has shown, on 27 May 1742 the Prince of Wales heard the Foundling Hospital Anthem, which closes with the same chorus.
his death as ‘our English Orpheus’ are eclipsed in effect by the words of the preacher Johann Michael Heineck on the occasion of the death of Handel’s beloved sister Dorothea Sophia long before in Halle: God had given her … many joys in her only brother, whose quite especially and exceptionally great Vertues even crowned heads, and the greatest ones of the earth, at the same time love and admire, and bestowed on her as well much contentment … She confirmed by her example the truth of Solomon’s words: the righteous hath hope in his death.
Whence comes, however, this joyousness, since there is no joy at hand? Why does hope flourish, even if the body, like a flower, fades away? Why does faith not pine away, even if body and mind pine away? No one can give better answers to these questions than the blessed woman, whose voice is henceforth stilled. She uttered them oftentimes in life, in the words of Job: For I know that my Redeemer liveth …3
As in Messiah, so in The Triumph of Time and Truth: a presentation of mortality reconciled to the divine order, a devout and holy call expressed in glorious music. This recording allows Handel’s late compilation to emerge from the shade of its illustrious antecedent, without the shadow of overfamiliarity clouding the brightness of its vocal and orchestral
3 Otto Erich Deutsch, Handel: A Documentary Biography (London: Adam & Charles Black, 1955), p. 81.
display. Handel’s Triumph compels us with every artifice gathered by the composer over the half-century of its development. On that score alone it is, indeed, a fitting celebration, not just of a moral Truth, but also of the march of Time itself.
© 2014 Peter Smaill
Peter Smaill specialises in Baroque musicology and is Chairman of Bach Network UK. A financier by trade, he has also lectured on the involvement of Bach and Handel with silver mining and the South Sea bubble respectively.
1 Overture
2 Chorus Time is supreme, Time is a mighty pow’r, Whom wisest mortals will adore.
3 Recitative Beauty, looking in a glass
How happy could I linger here, And stop old Time in his career!
4 Air Beauty
Faithful mirror, fair-reflecting, All my beauteous charms collecting, Which, I fear, will soon decay. Thou shalt flourish still in splendour, While these glories I surrender, Horrid Time’s devoted prey.
5 Recitative Pleasure
Fear not! I, Pleasure, swear That these charms you still shall wear, Ever blooming, ever fair.
Beauty
Beauty, thy slave, this vow shall make, Sweet Pleasure never to forsake; And, if this vow I disregard, In pain and anguish
Let me languish, Tasting Folly’s due reward.
6 Air Pleasure
Pensive sorrow, all-possessing, Life despoils of ev’ry blessing, Wraps it quite in shades of woe. Who indulges grief’s sad passion, Sore vexation, Knows no joyful day below.
7 Air Beauty
Sorrow darkens ev’ry feature, As when o’er the face of nature Gloomy clouds their mantle throw. Pleasure all around enlightens, Like the sun that gaily brightens Nature’s landscape here below.
8 Air and Chorus
Soprano solo and Chorus
Come, come! live with Pleasure, Taste in youth life’s only joy! Old age knows no leisure, Cares its wintry thoughts employ.
9 Recitative Time (to Beauty) Turn, look on me! Behold old Time, Counsel
And see Counsel, the son of Truth, Time
Who soon will show how frail a flower Beauty is: Counsel
The blossom of a day, that springs and dies.
10 Air Counsel
The beauty smiling, All hearts beguiling, Soon drooping, dying, Returns no more. The youth, now blooming, And still presuming, Few moments flying, Shall charm no more.
11 Recitative Pleasure
Our pow’rs we all will try, and see Who now shall gain the victory, Pleasure, Beauty Or Beauty, Time Time,
Counsel Or Counsel.
12 Air Beauty
Ever-flowing tides of pleasure Shall transport me beyond measure In this conflict with old Time, If he dares to despoil this choicest treasure. Beauty, blooming in its prime.
13 Recitative Time
The hand of Time pulls down
The great colossus of the sun, The stone-built castle, cloud-capp’t tower, And shall Beauty oppose my pow’r?
14 Air Time
Loathsome urns, disclose your treasure, Pride and Pleasure, Unveil to me, That I may see If now any Spark of beauty still remains. No, all dark as night! Only worms their prey enjoying, Dust and ashes still destroying, That which greedy tooth disdains.
15 Chorus
Strengthen us, O Time, with all thy lore: Teach us the ways of wisdom. Then shall we teach right ways unto the wicked, And sinners shall be converted unto God.
16 Recitative Deceit
Too rigid the reproof you give, Too deep the search of Truth. Wise men will still in pleasure live, And still enjoy, Without annoy, The proper fruits of youth.
17 Air Deceit
Happy Beauty, who, Fortune now smiling, With gay Pleasure and mirth Time beguiling, Still enjoys the sweet April of life. Come, indulge then no doubts to perplex you, Nor permit any sorrow to vex you, But live free from all care and all strife.
18 Air and Chorus
Deceit and Chorus
Happy, if still they reign in pleasure, All the sweets of youth possessing; Happy, if slighting Time’s dull measure, They enjoy a present blessing.
19 Recitative Counsel
Youth is not rich in Time; it may be poor, Nor can he call his own the passing hour. Time
Hence, let thy thoughts on frailty range, And know that ev’ry day Some charm I make my lawful prey, Though unperceived the change. Pleasure
He best, he only life enjoys Who will not think how fast it flies. Counsel
Yet, ere it is too late, give ear, And this instructive lesson hear.
20 Air and Chorus Time and Chorus
Like the shadow, life ever is flying, All unnoticed, so swift the delusion. Man heeds not Time, on hope still relying, Soon the bell strikes, and all is confusion.
21 Chorus
Pleasure submits to pain, As day gives way to night, And sorrow smiles again, As Time sets all things right. Thus are the seasons changed, And all in turn appear, In various order ranged, Throughout the revolving year.
22 Recitative Pleasure
Here Pleasure keeps his splendid court, Where all his devotees resort; And, at his nod, advance The costly feast, the carol, and the dance, Minstrels and music, poetry and play, The dance by night, and manly sports by day.
flourish of horns
Beauty
Hark! What sounds are these I hear?
23 Chorus Oh, how great the glory That crowns the hunter’s toil! Like Theseus, famed in story, He triumphs in the spoil.
24 Air and Chorus Pleasure
Dryads, sylvans, with fair Flora, Come, adorn this joyful place! Come, fair Iris, come, Aurora, This our festival to grace. Chorus
Lo! We all attend on Flora, To adorn this joyful place. Pleasure and Chorus
Iris comes with fair Aurora, This your festival to grace.
25 Air Deceit
No more complaining, No more disdaining, See Pleasure reigning Without control. Still more delighting, Sweetly inviting, Newly exciting The raptured soul.
26 Air Deceit
Pleasure’s gentle Zephyrs playing, Bid thee sail, without delaying, And the port of bliss attain. Let not doubtful fear confound thee, Taste the joys that now surround thee, Nor let Pleasure smile in vain.
27 Air Beauty
Come, O Time, and thy broad wings displaying, Might essaying, Sweep away, Without delay, The joyous pleasures of this sweet abode. Lo! He sleepeth, no more his strength prevailing, No more his power availing To destroy life’s sovereign good.
CD2
1 Air Counsel
Mortals think that Time is sleeping, When so swiftly unseen he’s sailing. But he comes, with ruin sweeping, In his triumph never failing.
2 Recitative Time (to Beauty)
You hoped to call in vain, but see me here: These lower regions are my proper sphere. Would you then dread no more My hated pow’r, Prepare thee for a nobler flight, Amidst the realms of light. Time cannot climb the blissful sky, Nor reach to immortality.
3 Air Time
False destructive ways of Pleasure Leave, and court a nobler treasure In the starry realms above.
Here though Folly’s sons defy me, Yet in vain they seek to fly me, While through all the world I rove.
4 Recitative Counsel (to Beauty)
Too long deluded you have been By Pleasure’s false and flatt’ring scene. Behold fair Truth, the heav’nly image see, Not decked, but fairest in simplicity: White robes of innocence she wears, Her look, her thoughts, turned to her kindred spheres. Time
Behold her faithful mirror too, Presenting all things to your view By just reflection, be they false or true.
5 Air Pleasure
Lovely Beauty, close those eyes, Charming Beauty, oh look not there! In that view all pleasure dies, In reflection is sure despair.
6 Recitative Deceit
Seek not to know what known will prove Grief more severe than slighted love.
7 Air Deceit
Melancholy
Is a folly, Wave all sorrow
Until tomorrow, Life consists in the present hour. This dear treasure we adore With grateful ardour, still employing, Still enjoying, The sweet moments in our pow’r.
8 Recitative Time
What is the present hour? ’Tis born and gone!
Think on the years already flown, Think you will both on bliss, but look in vain, Think on convicted error’s self-tormenting pain.
Beauty
No more! I know not where to turn, My heart’s too sad to laugh, too gay to mourn.
9 Air Beauty
Fain would I, two hearts enjoying, This in penitence employing, Freely that resign to joy.
10 Recitative Counsel
Vain the delights of age or youth, Without the sanction and applause of Truth. And as the soul more bright appears Than the frail earthly form she wears, So much true pleasures, from this glass, All other sublunary joys surpass.
11 Air Counsel
On the valleys, dark and cheerless, From the mountain’s summit, fearless, With contempt you’ll soon look down; That these present pleasures slighting, In sublimer views delighting, Not believe that choice your own.
12 Recitative Time
Not venial error this, but stubborn pride,
To leave a sure and friendly guide, Who, seeing you bewildered stray, Points out the short and easy way.
See, see the happy port before you lies, And Time exhorts you to be wise.
Beauty
Darkly as through a cloud, I see The immense treasures of futurity, But present joys my heart so fill
That, though inclined, I cannot will To leave this scene for immortality.
Counsel
Hear the call of Truth and Duty, And to Folly bid adieu.
Ere to dust is changed thy beauty, Change thy heart, and good pursue.
13 Chorus
Ere to dust is changed thy beauty, Change thy heart, and good pursue.
14 Sinfonia
15 Recitative Deceit (to Beauty)
Once more I thee address, Regardful of thy happiness.
16 Air Deceit
Charming Beauty, check the starting tear from flowing
All adown thy rosy cheek. Pleasure, still new charms bestowing, Ever cheerful Pleasure seek.
17 Recitative Beauty
Tempt me no more, Your words give no relief; I know no pleasure
But in virtuous grief.
18 Air Deceit
Sharp thorns despising, Cull fragrant roses; Why seek you treasure Mixed with alloy?
Old age advancing, Soon the scene closes: Life’s only pleasure Is to enjoy.
19 Recitative
Counsel
Regard her not. Unvalued here
Such tears may fall, but know each tear will prove
A precious pearl in heaven above.
Beauty
Soft and alluring is thy voice. Alas!
Too long I’ve erred! Put forth the heavenly glass!
Counsel
Behold, it waits your view!
Beauty
Now, Pleasure, take my last adieu!
20 Air
Beauty
Pleasure!
My former ways resigning, To Virtue’s cause inclining, Thee, Pleasure, now I leave, Lest, when my strength shall fail me, No sorrow can avail me, Nor sickness comfort give.
21 Chorus
Comfort them, O Lord, when they are sick, Make Thou their bed in sickness: Keep them alive, let them be blessed upon the earth, And not deliver them unto the foe.
22 Recitative Beauty
Since the immortal mirror I possess, Where Truth’s reflected beauties glow, Thee, faithless form, deluding glass, Thee to thy native earth I throw. Pleasure
Ah, stay, forbear!
Counsel (to Pleasure)
In vain you this prevention dare.
23 Air Counsel
Thus to earth, thou false, delusive, Flatt’ring mirror, thee I throw. Thou who, of thy power abusive, Didst exalt each charming feature, Far beyond the pride of nature, Feigning happiness below.
24 Recitative Beauty
O mighty Truth! Thy pow’r I see, All that was fair seems now deformity. This day my pride shall from its height descend, This day my reign of vanity shall end. Adieu, vain world! In search of greater good,
I’ll pass my days in sacred solitude; ’Tis fit the slave of vanity should dwell In some sequestered penitential cell.
25 Air Time
From the heart that feels my warning Grateful are the tears that flow. Pearly drops, the flow’rs adorning, Grace not more the dewy morning, Nor such blessings can bestow.
26 Recitative Beauty
Pleasure, too long associates we have been, Now share conviction from Truth’s faithful scene, Or to thy native darkness fly. Pleasure
As with Error I long have been dwelling, I with Truth now can have no contentment.
27 Air Pleasure
Like clouds, stormy winds them impelling, Disdainful I fly in resentment.
Hark! The thunders round me roll, Truth’s awful angry frowns I see; Her arrows wound my trembling soul, Nor is there any joy for me. Ah, no! Truth drives me to despair, Open, ye rocks, and hide me there.
28 Recitative Beauty
She’s gone; and Truth, descending from the sky, Clad in bright beams, its glorious light displays. Oh, thither let me cast my longing eye, And strive to merit her inspiring rays.
29 Air Beauty
Guardian angels, oh, protect me, And in Virtue’s path direct me, While resigned to Heaven above. Let no more this world deceive me, Nor let idle passions grieve me, Strong in faith, in hope, in love.
30 Chorus Hallelujah!
Ludus Baroque is Scotland’s chamber orchestra and chorus specialising in great works of the early music repertoire. The large ensemble gathers the finest baroque singers and instrumentalists from around the UK and is renowned for its twice-yearly productions at Edinburgh’s stunning Canongate Kirk: a performance of J.S. Bach’s B Minor Mass to celebrate the start of the Festival in August and a festive performance of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio every December.
Formed in 1998 under the direction of Richard Neville-Towle, the ‘crack group of British early musickers’ (The New York Times ) prides itself on the exuberance and energy of its performances, combining exceptional soloists with a chorus of the country’s top emerging artists and an ensemble of the UK’s leading period instrumentalists. Ludus Baroque has an enviable reputation for bringing together rising stars of the highest quality for energetic and uplifting performances of early music.
In addition to its popular Edinburgh performances (described by The Herald as ‘a small Edinburgh Festival in themselves’), the group has expanded its activity to concert venues outside the capital and also delivers high-quality training opportunities for emerging professional artists and the amateur performer alike. It has made two critically acclaimed Handel recordings with Delphian: Alexander’s
Feast (DCD34094, 2 CDs) and Song for St Cecilia’s Day/Look Down, Harmonious Saint/Concerto Grosso Op. 6 No. 7 in B flat (DCD34110).
Richard Neville-Towle was educated at Durham University and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, preceded by spells as organ scholar at Ely Cathedral and the Royal School of Church Music. He founded Ludus Baroque to fulfil his passion for the performance of Baroque masterpieces on period instruments, and continues to relish the pleasure in playing this wonderful music with performers of the quality and sense of fun that Ludus is fortunate to attract. In addition to directing Ludus Baroque projects, Richard is Director of Music at Canongate Kirk and conductor of Edinburgh’s Really Terrible Orchestra, a celebrated community orchestra which encourages participation regardless of musical ability.
Sophie Bevan graduated from the Benjamin Britten International Opera School where she was awarded the Queen Mother Rose Bowl Award. She works with conductors including Sir Antonio Pappano,
Daniel Harding, Harry Christophers, Edward Gardner, Laurence Cummings, Sir Mark Elder, Sir Neville Marriner and Sir Charles Mackerras. She is a noted recitalist and has performed at the Concertgebouw Kleine Zaal with Malcom Martineau and made her Wigmore Hall recital debut with Sebastian Wybrew to critical acclaim. Sophie has also appeared at the BBC Proms and the Edinburgh and Aldeburgh Festivals.
Her operatic roles for English National Opera include Despina (Così fan tutte ), soprano solos (Messiah ), Polissena (Radamisto ), Yum-Yum (The Mikado ), Telair (Rameau’s Castor and Pollux ) and her first Sophie (Der Rosenkavalier ). For Garsington Opera she has performed Pamina, Donna Elvira and her first Susanna, and for Welsh National Opera she has sung the title role in The Cunning Little Vixen. For the Royal Opera House Covent Garden she has appeared as Waldvogel (Siegfried ) and Pamina.
Sophie was the recipient of the 2010 Critics’ Circle award for Exceptional Young Talent. She was nominated for the 2012 Royal Philharmonic Society Awards and was the recipient of The Times Breakthrough Award at the 2012 South Bank Sky Arts Awards and the Young Singer award at the 2013 inaugural International Opera Awards.
Mary Bevan trained at the Royal Academy Opera and and read Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic at Trinity College, Cambridge. While at the RAM, she was the winner of the prestigious Richard Lewis award, was a member of the Royal Academy Song Circle, the soprano soloist for the Kohn Foundation Bach Cantata Series and the recipient of various other awards and prizes.
Operatic highlights include Barbarina (Le nozze di Figaro ) at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Servilla (La clemenza di Tito ) with Classical Opera, Galatea ( Acis and Galatea ) for Iford Arts under Christian Curnyn, the world premiere of David Bruce’s The Firework Maker’s Daughter co-commissioned by The Opera Group, Opera North and ROH2, and Barbarina and Zerlina (Don Giovanni ) for Garsington Opera. As an English National Opera Harewood Artist she has sung Papagena, Second Niece (Peter Grimes ), Yum-Yum (The Mikado ), Barbarina, and Rebecca in the world premiere of Two Boys by Nico Muhly.
Mary’s highlights on the concert platform include Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 2 with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Stravinsky’s Pulcinella with the
Prague Philharmonia, Messiah with the English Concert, Mendelssohn’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Edinburgh International Festival with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra under Sir Roger Norrington and Gilbert & Sullivan’s Yeomen of the Guard with the BBC Concert Orchestra at the BBC Proms.
Tim Mead is praised for the warmth of his voice and the virtuosity and stylistic elegance of his singing. He was a choral scholar at King’s College, Cambridge, before continuing his vocal studies at the Royal College of Music.
Operatic highlights include Endimione (Cavalli, La Calisto ) at Bayerische Staatsoper, the Voice of Apollo (Death in Venice ) at English National Opera and De Nederlandse Opera, Angel 1/Boy in George Benjamin’s Written on Skin at Théâtre du Capitole Toulouse, Tolomeo (Julius Caesar ) at English National Opera, Eustazio (Rinaldo ) at Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Ottone (The Coronation of Poppea /L’incoronazione de Poppea ) at ENO and Deutsche Oper am Rhein, Opéra de Lyon, Opéra de Lille, Opéra de Dijon and Den Norske Opera, title role Giulio Cesare at Glyndebourne Festival Opera and title role Orlando at Scottish Opera and Chicago Opera Theater.
On the concert platform, highlights include
Messiah with the New York Philharmonic, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, Le Concert
d’Astrée, Orchestra Sinfonica Nazionale
della Rai, Accademia Bizantina and Concerto
Köln, Bach Christmas Oratorio with Les Arts
Florissants, Bach Magnificat with Le Concert
d’Astrée and Bach St Matthew Passion with London Handel Festival and De Nederlandse
Bachvereniging. Mead has worked with such leading conductors as Ivor Bolton, William Christie, Laurence Cummings, Christian Curnyn, Alan Curtis, Ottavio Dantone, Paul Goodwin, Emmanuelle Haïm, Vladimir Jurowski, Nicholas McGegan, Marc Minkowski and Masaaki Suzuki.
Ed Lyon studied at St John’s College Cambridge, the Royal Academy and the National Opera Studio. He has a wide repertoire ranging from the Baroque to contemporary music and has appeared in many of the world’s leading opera and concert venues including the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Glyndebourne Festival Opera, Bayerische Staatsoper Munich, Netherlands Opera, Teatro Real Madrid, the Aix-en-Provence, Edinburgh, Holland and Aldeburgh festivals, Théâtre du Châtelet Paris, BAM New York, Theater an der Wien and the
BBC Proms, with conductors including Antonio Pappano, William Christie, René Jacobs, Ivor Bolton, Emmanuelle Haïm, Teodor Currentzis and Christian Curnyn.
Recent operatic projects include the central role of Colin (Denisov’s L’écume des jours ) for Stuttgart Opera, Hylas (Les Troyens ) for Covent Garden, Don Ottavio in a new production of Don Giovanni for Scottish Opera and Freddy (My Fair Lady ) for the Châtelet in Paris. Future projects include Ariadne auf Naxos, Der fliegende Holländer and Cavalli’s L’Ormindo for the Royal Opera, Jaquino (Fidelio ) for the Teatro Real in Madrid and the world premiere of Nicolas Lens’ Shell Shock for La Monnaie in Brussels.
London Symphony Orchestra, Mozarteum Orchester Salzburg, Die Kölner Akademie, New London Concert, Musikkollegium Winterthur and the English Chamber Orchestra.
Described as ‘one of the best of our younger baritones’ by Gramophone magazine, William Berger has distinguished himself as a singer of the highest calibre. His rich timbre and charismatic stage presence have led him to perform at renowned festivals, opera houses and concert halls, including the English National Opera, Liceu Barcelona and the Lucerne, Aix-enProvence and Edinburgh International festivals.
Past highlights include extensive tours with Les Arts Florissants and William Christie including Paris, London, Amsterdam and New York in repertoire including the title roles in Lully’s Atys, Rameau’s Pygmalion and Hippolyte and Charpentier’s Actéon, the title role in Monteverdi’s Orfeo at the Aix-enProvence Festival with René Jacobs, the title roles in Hippolyte and Purcell’s Fairy Queen for Glyndebourne and Pane (Cavalli, La Calisto ) and Lysander ( A Midsummer Night’s Dream ) for the Royal Opera, and Haydn’s L’anima de filosofo with Currentzis.
In concert, Ed Lyon has worked at the BBC Proms as well as with the Bach Choir, CBSO,
William’s imaginative approach to programming led to the release in 2012 of his debut recital disc, Insomnia: A Nocturnal Voyage In Song , with Iain Burnside (piano) on Delphian (DCD34116). This sequence of seventeen songs portraying the sleepless night of a man reflecting on the absence of his unnamed lover, was awarded four stars by The Guardian and William’s performance was described as ‘sweepingly sensual … pure gold’ by The Arts Desk and ‘magnetic’ by The Scotsman.
Recent engagements have included the title roles in Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo with La Nuova Musica and in Vivaldi’s L’Olimpiade at Garsington,
as well as a tour of the Scottish Highlands with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. A specialist in 17th and 18th-century repertoire, William has performed all of the major Mozartian baritone roles, including Count Almaviva, Papageno, Don Giovanni and Guglielmo, as well as a wide selection of roles by Monteverdi, Handel, Haydn, Puccini, Janáček and Weill.
In concert, William has performed at the Royal Albert Hall, Royal Festival Hall, Wigmore Hall, Sadler’s Wells, Birmingham Symphony Hall and Los Angeles Disney Concert Hall, with orchestras and ensembles including the London Philharmonic Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, English
Consort, La Nuova Musica, Cape Town Philharmonic and Philharmonia Baroque San Francisco. William has collected a multitude of prizes and awards, including the 2010 Ernst Haefliger Competition in Switzerland, the Kathleen Ferrier Society Bursary for Young Singers, the Countess of Munster Trust Scholarship, the Musicians Benevolent Fund Grant and the Ernest Oppenheimer Memorial Trust Award. William is a graduate and Associate of the Royal Academy of Music and a former member of the Young Singers Programme at English National Opera.
Ludus Baroque
Chorus
Soprano
Nicola Corbishley
Libby Crabtree
Emily Mitchell
Rachel Redmond
Emma Versteeg
Alto
Catherine Backhouse
Judy Brown
Martha McLorinan
Edward McMullan
Simon Ponsford
Tenor
Andrew Bennett
Peter Davoren
Richard Pratt
John Findon
Bass
Matthew Davies
Will Dawes
chorus leader
Gareth Dayus-Jones
Cheyney Kent
Sean Webster
Orchestra
Violin
Oliver Webber
orchestra leader
Jane Norman
Ellen O’Dell
Ruth Slater
Polly Smith
Fiona Huggett
Viola
Rachel Stott (4-6 August)
Stefanie Heichelheim (7 August)
Wendi Kelly
Cello
Christopher Suckling
Jonathan Byers
Double Bass
Elizabeth Bradley
Oboe/recorder
Hilary Stock
Karen Gibbard
Bassoon
Ursula Leveaux
Inga Maria Klaucke
Corno da caccia
Rachel Brady
Andy Saunders
Trumpet
Simon Desbruslais
Sandy McGrattan
Timpani
Alan Emslie
Harpsichord and Organ
Jan Waterfield
Handel: Alexander’s Feast
Sophie Bevan, Ed Lyon, William Berger, Ludus Baroque / Richard Neville-Towle
DCD34094 (2 discs)
Twice a year, some of the UK’s finest Baroque players and young vocal soloists come together in Canongate Kirk, Edinburgh to give sell-out concerts of great and lesser-known works by Bach and Handel. Now, for the first time, listeners from further afield can experience the celebrated verve of these performances; Handel’s 1736 setting of a dramatic poem by John Dryden is the perfect showpiece for the vitality and abandon of Ludus Baroque and their rising-star soloists.
‘Ed Lyon reaffirms his claim to be one of the pre-eminent Baroque tenors of our time’ — The Independent, March 2011
Handel: Song for St Cecilia’s Day
Mary Bevan, Ed Lyon, Ludus Baroque / Richard Neville-Towle
DCD34110
Following the widespread acclaim for their Delphian debut, Ludus Baroque return with more Handel, pairing the grand Song for St Cecilia’s Day – the composer’s second setting of words by Dryden – with the more intimate Cecilian cantata Look Down, Harmonious Saint. The Concerto Grosso in B flat, Op 6 No 7 serves as an instrumental bridge.
‘Orchestrally and chorally, it has tremendous buoyancy. Solos for flute, organ and cello are artfully phrased, while soprano Mary Bevan and tenor Ed Lyon add zest to Handel’s high-arching settings of Dryden’s verse’
— Independent on Sunday, August 2012
Handel: Overture Transcriptions & Harpsichord Suites
John Kitchen
DCD34053
Handel’s overtures had an independent life almost from their inception, and the practice of performing them on keyboard instruments has a similarly long pedigree, beginning with a number of transcriptions made by the composer himself. John Kitchen virtuosically evokes Handel’s orchestral palette in the welter of timbres and colours which he summons forth from the Russell Collection’s 1755 Jacob Kirckman harpsichord, a classic instrument from the apex of the English harpsichord-building tradition.
‘stylishly played … The music is universally glorious’ — Sunday Times, August 2009
Captain Tobias Hume: A Scottish Soldier
Alison McGillivray, Concerto Caledonia / David McGuinness
DCD34140
David McGuinness and his virtuoso band of early musickers voyage once more into musical history, and this time the object of their explorations is Tobias Hume, about whose life we know very little. The best guess for Hume’s birthdate could be any time from 1565 to 1579, and the materials documenting his appearance on the fringes of the London musical scene from around 1605 are sparse. This recording draws on the two books of music Hume published in his lifetime, and ranges from capricious fragments of tunes that celebrate the simple joy of playing the viol, to potent moments of substantial emotional depth. ‘My Life hath beene a Souldier,’ Hume declared in 1605, ‘and my idlenes addicted to Musicke.’ Concerto Caledonia have given us the opportunity to indulge in Hume’s addiction.
New in May 2014
