Henry Purcell - Twelve Overtures

    Name a composer of Baroque Classical Music?  Sure, that's easy.  Bach, Pachelbel, Handel, Vivaldi.  But how about an English composer of Baroque Classical Music?  That's a bit tougher.  I can think of only one.  Henry Purcell.

    The title says it all - 12 Overtures written by Purcell in his prolific, but all too brief career.  He died at 35 or 36 years old  (1659-1695).  The tracks are performed by the Bournemouth Sinfonietta, which was an offshoot of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, and existed from 1968 until 1999, when it disbanded for lack of funding.  They put out a sh*tload of albums in their lifetime, including this one (MHS 4524, Musical Heritage Society), in 1980.  You can read all about them in Wikipedia.

- Tracks - (favorites in pink)

01. King Arthur - Overture : Act 1
02. King Arthur - Second Music
03. Dido and Aeneas -Overture
04. The Married Beau - Overture
05. Bonduca - Overture
06. The Fairy Queen - Sonata - Act IV

07. Timon of Athens - Overture to the Masque
08. The Rival Sisters - Overture
09. Abdelazer - Overture
10. The Old Bachelor - Overture
11. Distressed Innocence - Overture
12. The Indian Queen - Trumpet Overture

    I think I picked this LP up for free from the local used record shop as part of their "buy one of our rock-&-roll LP's, get one of these classical LP's that nobody wants for free" deals.  The disc was in average shape, with a bunch of scratches throughout both sides, and a positively nasty forward-skip in Track 06.

    It cleaned up fairly well.  You can still hear "hollow thuds" where a couple of the major scratches were.  And of course, there's nothing to do about the skip.

    I'm a sucker for Baroque music of any kind, so I naturally like this whole album.  Purcell was big into trumpet fanfares, and although most of these were written for plays by Purcell's contemporaries, nowadays they'd fit perfectly in some 1950's "Knights in Shining Armor" black-&-white action movies.

    All in all, a nice pick-up, although if you're not into Baroque, you may be yawning by Track 2.  A bunch of these are posted on YouTube, including the best of the bunch - The Fairy Queen.