harmonia mundi (en)

Alfred Deller tirelessly promoted his core repertoire of Elizabethan lute songs and Purcell throughout his career. This recital recital was recorded in Provence only three months before Deller’s death at Bologna in 16 July 1979. Some of the most familiar songs here, such as ‘Fairest Isle’, were originally conceived as operatic music for soprano voice, but one cannot imagine that Purcell would have minded Deller taking the music out of context, adapting if required, and making it his own.