Amanda Forsythe - The Blessed Virgin's Expostulation by Henry Purcell (1659-1695)

Amanda Forsythe (soprano) sings "The Blessed Virgin's Expostulation" by Henry Purcell (1659-1695).

Henry Purcell's wonderful scena “Tell me, some Pitying Angel” appeared in the second book of Harmonia Sacra: or Divine Hymns and Dialogues (1693) as “The Blessed Virgin's Expostulation; When our Saviour (at Twelve Years of Age) had withdrawn himself.” The text was provided by Nahum Tate, the librettist of Purcell's opera Dido and Aeneas and is intensely dramatic. The distraught mother searches in vain for her son, unaware that he has remained behind in Jerusalem to consult with the elders in Temple. In her desperation she calls for help from the angel who visited her at the Annunciation and her repeated cries of ‘Gabriel' form one of Purcell's most original and startling musical effects.

The opening is urgent, with Mary demanding and repeating that ‘some pitying angel’ should tell where her son has gone: mention of her ‘sweet darling’ brings an affectionate richness to both melody and harmony. Memories of Herod’s slaughter of the innocent children draws an angular melisma on the word ‘cruel’, immediately countered by the contrasting, gentle phrase ‘Oh, rather let his little footsteps press’, leading to the winding melisma on ‘through’, which represents the arduous journey that Joseph, Mary and the baby Jesus made to escape from Judaea. The ‘milder savages’ (Tate’s splendid oxymoron) are treated to calm harmony, a total contrast to the vehement, high-tessitura ‘tyrant’ that expresses all Mary’s loathing for Herod’s court. The four repetitions of ‘Why?’, each one higher in pitch, show the mother’s concern for her lost child, and Purcell’s repetition of ‘was i’, Mary’s growing disbelief in reality – that everything may have been ‘a waking dream’ that foretold ‘Thy wondrous birth’. Purcell finds delightful word-painting for the two rising notes with which he sets ‘above’, and Mary calls for Gabriel, her trumpet-like phrase ‘I call’ rising to a repeated top G: she demands, four times, the archangel’s presence. He does not appear, and again four times Mary calls his name. Her confidence wanes as the phrase progresses, and by the fourth call, reality has struck: the phrase ‘flatt’ring hopes, farewell’ illustrates her utter desolation with wistfully falling harmony.

The work's short, contrasting sections give it a similar shape to the mad songs that Purcell wrote for the theater and indeed, although designed for chamber performance, it is no less strongly dramatic.

"The Blessed Virgin's Expostulation"

Tell me, tell me some, some pitying angel,
Tell quickly, quickly, quickly say,
Where, where does my soul's sweet darling stray,
In tiger's or more cruel, more cruel cruel Herod's way?
Ah, ah rather, rather let his little, little footsteps press
Unregarded through the wilderness,
Where milder, milder, where milder savages resort,
The desert's safer, the desert's safer than a tyrant's court.
Why, why, fairest object of my love,
Why, why dost thou from my longing eyes remove?
Was it, was it a waking dream that did fortell thy wondrous birth,
Thy wondrous, wondrous birth?
No vision, no, no vision from above?
Where's Gabriel, where's Gabriel now that visited my cell?
I call, I call, I call: Gabriel! Gabriel!
He comes not.
Flatt'ring, flatt'ring hopes, farewell flatt'ring hopes, farewell.
Me Judah's daughters once caress'd,
Call'd me of mothers the most, the most bless'd.
Now fatal change, of mothers most distress'd.
How, how shall my soul its motions guide?
How, how shall I stem the various, various tide,
Whilst faith and doubt my lab'ring soul divide?
For whilst of thy dear, dear sight beguil'd,
I trust the God, but oh! I fear, but oh! I fear the child.
Nahum Tate (1652-1715)

June 13, 2019

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