VoxCarnyx

Cumbernauld Theatre

The theme of night-time is far from unusual in selections of art songs for recordings and recitals, and Through the Night with Henry Purcell sounds too much like a programme title on the post-Classic FM iteration of BBC Radio 3, but this evening in the company of the Dunedin Consort’s Associate Director Nicholas Mulroy and a sextet of Baroque instruments was a carefully-considered compilation.

Although the tenor was the star of the show, and an ever-informative guide through it, Purcell’s Evening Hymn and O Solitude, together with songs from The Fairy Queen and the Odes, were evenly balanced by instrumental music, composed by Georg Muffat and Giovanni Battista Draghi as well as Purcell and played by two violins, two violas, cello and theorbo, led by Matthew Truscott.

Truscott’s violin was Mulroy’s duet partner on The Plaint from The Fairy Queen, but every member of his group was on their mettle throughout. The two violas gave the sound a rich chordal middle register, while the rhythm section of Toby Carr’s theorbo and Jonathon Manson on cello was precision itself.

Two Muffat Sonatas from Armonica Tributo were a pan-European complement to Purcell’s Shakespearean London, coupling poised, courtly French influence with flash Italianate virtuosity, and Manson was outstanding in the central movement of the first of those. It sat at the centre of a first half that was especially well-constructed, flowing smoothly between the songs and the instrumental music, ending with Purcell’s praise of the moon as “Glittering Queen of Night”.

The music after the interval was also full of riches, with two odes to St Cecilia, by Draghi and Purcell, at its heart, but seemed a little less successfully sequenced. Mulroy’s more expressive singing, in Be Welcome then, Great Sir and Now the Night is Chased Away, was deadened a little by the theatre acoustic and will likely benefit from the church resonance of other venues on the tour.

What this location provided was an enveloping darkness to suit the theme of the recital. The printed programme provided the texts of the songs, but being able to read them was unnecessary, such was the clarity of the tenor’s diction. The timbre of Mulroy’s voice suits these songs very well indeed, even if we hear them more often in the repertoire of counter-tenors.

Each half began with a Purcell Fantazia, the first of those “Upon One Note” and introducing the second viola, whose job it is to maintain that constant C. The composer’s “Curtain Tune on a ground” from his score for a production of Timon of Athens was a rarer little instrumental gem.

Keith Bruce

Tours to Northesk Parish Church, Musselburgh on Thursday February 6, Motherwell Cathedral on Friday February 7, St Michael’s, Linlithgow on Saturday February 8 and Beacon Arts Centre, Greenock on Sunday February 9.

Portrait of Nicholas Mulroy by Raphaelle Photography