An Unexpected Hallelujah
L’Arpeggiata’s CD of improvisations on Purcell, Music for a While, ends with a bonus track – not another Purcell, but, rather surprisingly, Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’, given a very distinctive treatment by alto Vincenzo Capezzuto and members of the company. I can’t say that I like Capezzuto’s voice very much (he also sings ’‘Twas Within a Furlong’, ‘Wondrous Machine’ and ‘One Charming Night’), but the overall sound of this ‘Hallelujah’ is, I think, rather lovely...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWHsJhwC4So&list=RDCWHsJhwC4So&start_radio=1
Why ‘Hallelujah’? Well, Purcell’s music is not short of Hallelujahs – the beautiful sequence at the end of the Evening Hymn, for example. And consider…
An Unexpected Hallelujah
L’Arpeggiata’s CD of improvisations on Purcell, Music for a While, ends with a bonus track – not another Purcell, but, rather surprisingly, Leonard Cohen’s ‘Hallelujah’, given a very distinctive treatment by alto Vincenzo Capezzuto and members of the company. I can’t say that I like Capezzuto’s voice very much (he also sings ’‘Twas Within a Furlong’, ‘Wondrous Machine’ and ‘One Charming Night’), but the overall sound of this ‘Hallelujah’ is, I think, rather lovely...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWHsJhwC4So&list=RDCWHsJhwC4So&start_radio=1
Why ‘Hallelujah’? Well, Purcell’s music is not short of Hallelujahs – the beautiful sequence at the end of the Evening Hymn, for example. And consider this, from a commemorative Ode (by Henry Hall) in the Orpheus Britannicus collection of Purcell’s songs –
‘What art thou? From what causes dost thou spring, O Music, thou divine, mysterious thing? Let me but know, and knowing give me voice to sing. Art thou the warmth in Spring that Zephyr breathes, Painting the meads and whistling through the leaves? The happy season that all Grief exiles, When God is pleased, and the Creation smiles? Or art thou Love, that mind to mind imparts The endless Concord of agreeing Hearts? Or art thou Friendship, yet a nobler flame, That can a clearer way make souls the same? Or art thou rather, which does all transcend, The Centre where at last the Blest ascend, The Seat where Hallelujahs never end?’