Seasons > 2004-05 Season > Concerts >

The London Scene

Friday September 17, 2004, 8:00 pm

Airs and cantatas by Purcell and Handel with the well-known Canadian soprano Karina Gauvin

London figured very early among the most important cities for music in Europe. English musicians of the seventeenth century, who were discerningly open to Italian and French influences, cultivated a truly original national style. The greatest among them, Henry Purcell, left a body of work unique in its variety and depth of expression. Around 1700, however, when England was gaining new importance as a nation, its capital, despite some surges of patriotism, was invaded by foreign musicians and opened its doors to Italian opera. George Frideric Handel was the champion of bel canto for more than thirty years; nevertheless, because of the grandeur of his style and its adaptation to English tastes, he is considered to be the greatest musician to have lived in the British Isles.

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