Music by Buxtehude, Purcell, Blow, Purcell, and Handel – Iestyn Davies; Ensemble Guadagni
Within a year of recording this CD at his first solo recital at Wigmore Hall, Iestyn Davies went on to receive the Young Artists Award of the Royal Philharmonic Society. The concert also represented his first collaboration with Ensemble Guadagni, comprising some of the UK’s finest period instrument specialists.
The recital opens with a triumphant cantata by Buxtehude and, in John Blow’s As on his deathbed gasping Strephon lay, includes a piece with satirical overtones – celebrating the final repentance of the Earl of Rochester, a famous libertine. By contrast, Handel’s Nine German Arias were written in the 1720s to poems expressing ‘Earthly delight in God’ by the composer’s old friend Barthold Heinrich Brockes.
When Davies sang in Handel’s Partenope at the New York City Opera, The New York Times described him as ‘The vocal star of the night… He sang with a luminous, creamy countertenor’.
"Gramophone Recommends"
"A counter tenor ’borrows’ Handel’s German arias most successfully." "...Iestyn Davies sings with the kind of authority, intelligent musicanship and rechnical assurance that were the hallmarks of his finest predecessors during their heyday."
David Vickers
Performance ***** Recording *****
"Intimacy and freshness make this a breathtaking performance."
Berta Joncus
1 Ratings
