Saturday 26 February 2022 7:30PM

Dunedin Consort; Anna Dennis soprano; Matthew Brook baritone

The Trials of Love

Information

Download the PDF programme and song sheet/translations here. Reproduction and distribution is strictly prohibited.

Archived

Anna Dennis soprano
Matthew Brook baritone
Dunedin Consort
John Butt director, harpsichord
Matthew Truscott violin I
Sarah Bevan-Baker violin I
Hilary Michael violin I
Huw Daniel violin II
Rebecca Livermore violin II
Kristin Deeken violin II
John Crockatt viola
Oliver Wilson viola
Andrew Skidmore cello
Lucia Capellaro cello
Carina Cosgrave double bass
Katy Bircher flute
Alexandra Bellamy oboe
Oonagh Lee oboe
Joe Qiu bassoon

Two tales of love — both tragedies in their own ways — are brought together in this coupling of baroque cantatas. From a woman so lovestruck that she can only find solace in nature, as in Bella madre de’ fiori, to the tragic tale of Daphne, who tries and fails to resist Apollo’s advances and is transformed into a laurel tree, her branches watered forever by his tears. These extraordinary tales of passion and penitence are rendered by Handel and Scarlatti in music of searing intensity, their rapturous obbligato writing by turns, playful, poignant and seductive.