Scene of the Drunken Poet (“Fairy Queen” Z. 629) The Henry Purcell Society of Boston

recorded live at the Shalin Liu Performance Center in Rockport, MA September 20, 2015
Jessica Cooper, Artistic Director

David McFerrin, baritone
Margot Rood, Sarah Moyer, sopranos
with Jessica Cooper, Douglas Dodson, Eric Christopher Perry, Jacob Scharfman

Ian Watson, harpsichord
Guy Fishman, cello
Susanna Ogata, Jesse Irons, violins; Emily Dahl-Irons, viola

We here in Boston believe that the HPSOB brings something unique to our musical world, and we need your help to continue to produce these Baroque era concerts that are delighting you here on our channel. If you like what you see, please visit our website to learn more about supporting our mission of bringing entertaining realizations of the plays for which much of this music was written, as well as the sacred and secular works of Henry Purcell. Visit us here: www.bostonpurcell.org/support-us

We are a new group, and need your help to grow and continue to spread the religion of great Baroque music!!

Thank you- Jessica Cooper, Artistic Director

To learn more about our work, or to support our mission of promoting the works of Henry Purcell, please visit our website at: www.BostonPurcell.org

In July of 1692, Princess Anne organized a fleet of barges to carry her party to Dorset Garden for a performance of Purcell’s semi opera "The fairy Queen," which she had been too ill to attend a few weeks earlier. The text for this extravaganza, which remains anonymous, is an adaptation of the Titania-Oberon plot from A Midsummer’s night’s Dream, but when the company revived the show in 1693, they cut even more of Shakespeare’s dialogue to make room for a new scene featuring a drunken poet, which concludes this concert. John Dryden, who has left us many grumpy comments expressing his conviction that poetry was superior to music, nonetheless recognized the special qualities of Purcell’s theatre music.

James Winn, and the Henry Purcell Society of Boston