William Christie Purcell - Divine Hymns (Harmonia Sacra) / Les Arts Florissants, Christie

William Christie's new recording on Virgin Classics is a programme of English sacred works drawn largely from the two volumes of Playford's Harmonia Sacra, or Divine Hymns and Dialogues (1688/1693). The published pieces are mostly by Purcell and his friend and teacher John Blow, and it is Purcell who dominates here, with some of his most ravishing sacred songs, including "Tell me, some pitying angel" (The Blessed Virgin's expostulation), the dramatic scena "In guilty night", describing Saul¹s fateful visit to the Witch of Endor, one of the early Funeral Sentences, and the exquisite "Evening Hymn". Blow is represented by two settings, "Peaceful is he and most secure" and the antiphon "Salvator mundi". The programme also includes works by Pelham Humfrey, with whom Purcell studied, and William Croft, like Purcell organist of the Chapel Royal and Westminster Abbey.