Our Purcell project continues with the ode ‘Hail, bright Cecilia’, written for the St Cecilia celebrations in London on 22 November 1692. With its grand choruses and varied solos, ranging from the virtuosic ‘’Tis Nature’s voice’ to the superb ground bass duets ‘Hark each tree’ and ‘The soft complaining flute’, it is Purcell’s longest, most elaborate, most varied and greatest nontheatrical work, fully deserving its immediate and enduring popularity – it was reportedly encored in full at its first performance. We pair it with the masque of Cupid and Bacchus, the climax of Purcell’s first dramatic opera Dioclesian (1690), in which these Classical gods and their supporters argue for the respective merits of love and wine in a
delightful sequence of solos, richly scored choruses and dances, culminating in the massive chaconne ‘Triumph, victorious Love’.

Supported by the SVF Purcell Project Fund

TICKETS: £20 (reserved) & £15 (unreserved)
HALF-PRICE TO THOSE UNDER 30