Beauteous Softness

Countertenor Tim Mead presents Beauteous Softness, a programme containing restrained yet profoundly moving songs by seventeenth-century English composers such as Purcell, Blow, Humfrey and Webb, in collaboration with La Nuova Musica and David Bates. The album also showcases the rich musical context that provided the foundation from which Purcell rose to prominence.

Tim Mead is one of today’s most in-demand countertenors, and returns to Pentatone after having starred in a complete recording of Handel’s Messiah (2020). La Nuova Musica and its artistic director David Bates are among the most exciting Baroque ensembles of today. Their Pentatone debut with Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice was both BBC Music Magazine’s Choice and Gramophone Editor’s Choice in December 2019, while Handel’s Unsung Heroes (2021) was BBC Music Magazine Recording of the Month and selected among the Best Classical Music Albums of 2022 by Gramophone.

• Blow: Lovely Selina
• Blow: Poor Celadon, he sighs in vain
• Blow: So ceas'd the rival crew
• Blow: Venus and Adonis: Overture
• Humfrey: A Hymne to God the Father
• Humfrey: Sleep downy sleep come close mine eyes
• Purcell: Abdelazer or The Moor's Revenge: incidental music, Z570
• Purcell: Arise, my Muse (from Arise, my Muse, Z320)
• Purcell: Be welcome then, great Sir
• Purcell: By beauteous softness (from Now does the glorious day appear, Z332)
• Purcell: Chaconne (From King Arthur)
• Purcell: Crown the altar (from Celebrate this Festival - Birthday Ode for Queen Mary, Z321)
• Purcell: If music be the food of love Z379A
• Purcell: In the black dismal dungeon of despair, Z190
• Purcell: O let me ever, ever weep (from The Fairy Queen, Z629)
• Purcell: So when the glittering Queen of Night
• Purcell: The pale and the purple rose
• Purcell: Vouchsafe, O Lord (from Te Deum in D, Z232)
• Webb, W: Powerful Morpheus