"Fairest Isle"

I've just been sent a bunch of sheet music by the lovely people at the Worcestershire Baroque Orchestra for a course/workshop I'm doing in a couple of weeks, and I was immediately drawn to this air from Purcell's King Arthur.

Now, as I've probably said before, my sight singing is nothing like what it should be...I think a few decades of solfege is in order! So I can't say that I was drawn in by what I was hearing in 'my mind's ear'; no, it was purely for the fact that (and I quote myself directly here) 'this music's so old that the notes are written the wrong way!'. So with my highly intellectual and inspirational observation to spur me on, I dove into Venus' aria...

King Arthur, based on the legend of the man himself (amongst other works such as Shakespeare's The Tempest) , is a 'semi-opera' really...as the principal characters don't sing - you're only roped into that if you're a supernatural character; in this case, the goddess of love, Venus. Her only aria appears in the final act, as Britannia rises out of the waves, standing on the 'fairest isle'.

The first thing that struck me about this was its overwhelming purity. The accompaniment is thin, mainly worked around the figured bass; so the focus falls entirely on the vocal line. Another interesting feature is the sort of mirrored rhythm that is repeated several times throughout; crotchet, minim, minim crotchet. Considering the piece is in 3/4 it kind of subtly stilts the flowing movement...I'm not entirely sure why though. I think it makes the melismas stand out though - and they're really the most heart-stopping thing about this...and make it obvious that it's Venus herself singing. There's an absolutely perfect example, that comes directly off the word 'excel' - the 'ssss' noise acting as a spring-board to the melismas which really do 'excel'...nice word painting there Mr. P.

Sylvia McNair, who's recording I discovered on youtube, has an extraordinarily pure voice, which matches perfectly with Baroque style of course, but also with the context of the piece and the character. Also, the not overly operatic voice makes diction much clearer, and every single word is perfectly enunciated. The only problem with this is that I always feel English sounds a little strange...and can't compare with the poeticism of Italian, French, or even German. Then again...I wonder if native speakers of those languages feel exactly the same way? Who knows...