The Danse Macabre was part of a wider constellation of allegories that acknowledged the darkness of a life that ended in death within the joy of music. Dancing manias that ended in broken bones and death; reminders that under all the pomp and richly-clothed power lurked the bare bones of skeletons. As the 1600s slipped into chaos and war, this foreshadowing became ever more acute and entwined with the strangeness and dissonance of the early English Baroque.
Our programme will focus on the seventeenth century including pieces by John Danyel and Henry Purcell as well as less well-known works by William Webb, John Banister, John Blow and an astonishingly beautiful vocal work by Henry Lawes’ brother William Lawes who, though assigned away from the front-line to keep him from danger, was “casually shot” by a Parliamentarian at Rowton Heath, near Chester, in 1645. This work appears in his brother’s autograph manuscript in the British Library detailing 324 songs few of which are either known or performed now.
- Here the Deities (Purcell)
- Musick for a While (Purcell)
- Powerful Morpheus (Webb)
- She weepeth sore in the night (W Lawes)
- O let me still and silent lie (W Lawes)
- Grief keep within (Danyel)
- Drop not (Danyel)
- Have all our passions (Danyel)
- Poor Celadon (Blow)
- Amintas that true hearted swain (Banister)
- O Solitude (Purcell)
- I attempt from Love’s Sickness (Purcell)
- She loves and confesses too (Purcell)
Tickets now available from eventbrite
Doors open 6:30pm for 7pm start. Programme is roughly 60 minutes. Wine, beer and refreshments available before and after performance
