Part 1
Martin Handley presents Purcell's semi-opera King Arthur from the 2011 Spitalfields Summer Festival. Featuring The English Concert and I Fagiolini under Robert Hollingworth.
Live from Shoreditch Church, London as part of the Spitalfields Summer Festival.
Presented by Martin Handley
Purcell's King Arthur is one of the masterpieces of English theatre music. It's performed here by The English Concert, resident artists at this year's Spitalfields Festival, joined by the vocal Baroque specialists I Fagiolini and their director Robert Hollingworth.
Dryden wrote King Arthur as a play, focussing on the battles between the Britons and the Saxons, and their respective leaders, Arthur and Oswald. Dryden and Purcell had collaborated before with great success, and here Dryden adapted his text for Purcell, who created a masterful sequence of musical numbers, including the 'Frost scene' and the famous air 'Fairest Isle'.
Purcell: King Arthur
I Fagiolini
The English Concert
director Robert Hollingworth.
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