Tír Na HiFi

Diapason wrote:Sibelius 2, and I'm enjoying it immensely.

Good for you....that is a great set!

Now time for a bit of Blow (!)

Diapason wrote:Now time for a bit of Blow (!)

a most interesting disk, Simes..

I see he was Purcell's teacher... how does his work stand up in terms of overall quality?

It's in a very similar sound world as you might expect, and while it may not quite have Purcell's freshness, there's a lot to recommend it. This disc is all I have of Blow's music, and it's the kind of CD you dip into rather than listen all the way through, because it's full of short individual works. One in particular really takes my fancy, where Philander sings to an echo. It's really very clever.

I have Blow's Venus & Adonis with Rene Jacobs and I certainly would recommend it as a good listen.

^^ thanks my friend, I see I might have to invest (along with works by Orlando Gibbons, which I have been promising myself for some time)

Jared wrote:^^ thanks my friend, I see I might have to invest (along with works by Orlando Gibbons, which I have been promising myself for some time)

A nice entry point to Gibbons would be this....




The Rose Consort are a good outfit.

Another really gorgeous one is this....





Forget the fact that there is a little organ on it; the music is gorgeous!

You should be able to pick both up very cheaply on Amazon.

Jared wrote:

Diapason wrote:Now time for a bit of Blow (!)

a most interesting disk, Simes..

I see he was Purcell's teacher... how does his work stand up in terms of overall quality?

Blow is a very nice composer, but Purcell was a genius, quite simply in a different class.
Curiously enough, Blow´s greatest work is probably the great Ode on the death of Mr. Purcell.
Like Mozart, Bellini, Schubert and Chopin, Purcell stayed too little in this World, but he surely did a lot.