Saving Handel

Worthy of Preservation

Let's hit the ground running this year and fight the good fight to preserve things worth preserving. A reader put me on to Voices of Music, an early music ensemble based in San Francisco in the US who perform pre-1800 Renaissance and Baroque music.

Voices of Music are creating a 'worldwide digital library of music videos and recordings, free for anyone in the world'. That's a very generous ambition, and one we should really get behind: donate here. If you're in two minds, compare their efforts to keep the music of some of our greatest composers alive with the contribution of Victoria Beckham to our culture. Victoria bafflingly received an OBE in the New Year's Honours list. Nice as she undoubtedly is, one can't help feeling that there's something rotten in the state of Denmark.

Voices of Music perform on original instruments 'from the time of the composer' for studied authenticity. From their website, you can watch heading towards two hundred performances in ultra-high definition.

Here we see the ensemble perform Sento Brillar from Handel's Il Pastor Fido with countertenor Christopher Lowrey.



Here soprano Anna Dennis joins to perform the delightful Love's Constancy, Thomas Lanier's setting of words by the Cavalier poet Thomas Carew.



Anna Dennis again with Purcell's incredible Dido's Lament. No playlist should be without it.



Bravo to Voices of Music. I could keep adding their videos here, but go and take a look at their website and indulge yourself for a bit. If anything, it will take your mind off Victoria Beckham's award for 'services to fashion'.