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Catherine Bott is one of the leading London-based sopranos, particularly renowned among those participating regularly in early music performances. She studied with Arthur Reckless at the Guildhall School of Music. The early music movement was burgeoning in England at the time of her graduation, and she found the music appealed to her sensibilities. Her interpretations and performances are frequently noted for their intelligence.

Her recordings include Purcell's The Fairy Queen (Erato), the part of Drusilla in L'incoronazione di Poppea on Deutsche Grammophon, Herodiade Figlia in Stradella's San Giovanni Battista (Erato), Venus in John Blow's Venus and Adonis, a recording of Monteverdi's Vespers, Monteverdi's Orfeo, and a recital of "mad songs" and scenes from English Restoration theater, all the latter on Decca.

She has appeared with Marc Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre; the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra; Christopher Hogwood and the Academy of Ancient Music; Stephen Layton and Polyphony; the New London Consort under Philip Pickett; the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra; and the American Bach Soloists. Works she has sung include Mozart's Requiem, Regina coeli, and Exsultate, jubilate; programs of vocal music by Handel and Vivaldi, Handel's Messiah, Bach's B minor Mass, and Carissimi's Historia de Jepthe.

However, her activities are not limited to Classical and Baroque music. Romantic era works include Fauré's Requiem, Nielsen's Third Symphony, and Mahler's Das klagende Lied. Her modern repertory includes Berio's Laborintus II; Michael Nyman's Noises, Sounds, and Sweet Airs; Nikolai Korndorf's Hymnus III; John Harle's Silencium; and Michael Torke's Four Proverbs. She also sang on the soundtrack of the film The Emerald Forest.

She has appeared at the Brixen and Spitalfield's Festivals, the Kilkenny Arts Week, and the Lunchtime Concert Series at St. John's, Smith, Square. She has made 40 broadcast recordings for BBC Radio 3.

British tenor Joseph Cornwell is a specialist in Baroque operatic and oratorio repertoire. He studied at York University and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, then entered the London early music scene singing in the Consort of Musicke and the Taverner Consort. Cornwell is a frequent collaborator with conductors such as William Christie, Harry Christophers, Eric Ericson, John Eliot Gardiner, Robert King, Hervé Niquet, and Andrew Parrott. Cornwell has appeared on the opera stage in a wide range of roles, including Achille in Gluck's Iphigénie en Aulide for Opera Factory; Lurcanio in Handel's Ariodante for St. Gallen Opera; the title role in Monteverdi's Orfeo for the Boston Early Music Festival, in Rio de Janeiro, and for Oslo Summer Opera; Giove in Monteverdi's Il ritorno d'Ulisse and the title role in Purcell's King Arthur in Lisbon; Eumete in Monteverdi's Il ritorno d'Ulisse for the Académie Européenne de Musique at the Aix-en-Provence Festival; and Agenore in Mozart's Il rè pastore for Radio Television Luxembourg. Cornwell's non-operatic performances have included performances of the Bach Passions with the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra, Handel's Acis and Galatea and Messiah at the Bruges and Stuttgart festivals, Alexander's Feast at the Namur Festival, Handel's Solomon at the Göttingen Festival, the Monteverdi Vespers at the Edinburgh Festival, Purcell's Odes with Les Arts Florissants, Honegger's King David at the Brighton Festival, and the Mozart Requiem with the London Mozart Players. Cornwell has sung on numerous recordings, including the Evangelist in Bach's St. Matthew Passion with the Drottningholm Court Baroque Ensemble; the Campra Requiem with Le Concert Spirituel; Handel's Carmelite Vespers, Messiah, and the Monteverdi Vespers with the Taverner Consort; Handel's Acis and Galatea (a winner of the Gramophone Baroque Vocal CD of 2000), Monteverdi Vespers, and Mozart Mass in C minor with Les Arts Florissants; Mozart's Requiem with the Yorkshire Baroque Soloists; Rossini's Petite messe solennelle with Jos van Immerseel (winner of the BBC Radio 3 Building a Library Choice); Awake sweet love (a collection of 17th century lute songs); Fairest Isle with the Parley of Instruments; and various discs with the Consort of Musicke, the New London Consort, and Pro Cantione Antiqua.

As England's greatest composer of the Baroque, Henry Purcell was dubbed the "Orpheus Britannicus" for his ability to combine pungent English counterpoint with expressive, flexible, and dramatic word settings. While he did write instrumental music, including the important viol fantasias, the vast majority of his output was in the vocal/choral realm. His only opera, Dido and Aeneas, divulged his sheer mastery in the handling of the work's vast expressive canvas, which included lively dance numbers, passionate arias and rollicking choruses. Purcell also wrote much incidental music for stage productions, including that for Dryden's King Arthur. His church music includes many anthems, devotional songs, and other sacred works, but few items for Anglican services.

Purcell was born in 1659 to Henry Purcell, master of choristers at Westminster Abbey, and his wife Elizabeth. When he was five, his father died, forcing his mother to resettle the family of six children into a more modest house and lifestyle. In about 1668, Purcell became a chorister in the Chapel Royal, studying under chorus master Henry Cooke. He also took keyboard lessons from Christopher Gibbons, son of the composer Orlando Gibbons, and it is likely that he studied with John Blow and Matthew Locke. In 1673, Purcell was appointed assistant to John Hingeston, the royal instrument keeper.

On September 10, 1677, Purcell was given the Court position of composer-in-ordinary for the violins. It is believed that many of his church works date from this time. Purcell, a great keyboard virtuoso by his late teens, received a second important post in 1679, this one succeeding Blow as organist at Westminster Abbey, a position he would retain all his life. That same year saw the publication of five of the young composer's songs in John Playford's Choice Ayres and Songs to Sing to the Theorbo-lute or Bass-viol. Around the same time, he began writing anthems with string accompaniment, completing over a dozen before 1685, and welcome songs. Purcell was appointed one of three organists at the Chapel Royal in the summer of 1682, his most prestigious post yet.

Purcell composed his first ode for St. Cecilia's Day in 1683. The following month, upon Hingeston's death, he was named royal instrument keeper while retaining his other posts. The composer remained quite prolific in the middle part of the decade, primarily producing music for royal occasions. In 1685 the new King, James II, introduced many changes at Court, one of which was to make Purcell the Court harpsichordist and Blow the Court composer. Near the end of 1687, Queen Mary's pregnancy was announced and Purcell was commissioned to compose an anthem with the text of Psalm 128, Blessed are they that fear the Lord. Many other of his anthems appeared in 1688, as did one of his more famous ones for church use, O sing unto the Lord.

With the ascension of William and Mary to the throne on April 11, 1689, Purcell retained his post as royal instrument keeper, and he, along with Blow and Alexander Damazene, shared the duties of Court composers. With his royal duties reduced, he was able to pursue other opportunities, including teaching and writing for other organizations. One of Purcell's greatest successes came in 1689 with the production of Dido and Aeneas. He then collaborated with John Dryden on King Arthur in 1691, and also composed the music for The Fairy-Queen (1692), based on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream both productions also scoring triumphs. In the final year of his life Purcell remained exceedingly busy, writing much for the stage, including The Indian Queen, left incomplete at his death on November 21, 1695. ~ Robert Cummings

In the crowded field of period instrument groups, the Parley of Instruments distinguishes itself by focusing on the repertoire for the early violin, from the Renaissance and early Baroque periods, and by applying its knowledge of this and seventeenth century vocal music to its performances of later Baroque and early Classical works. The ensemble was established in 1979 by Peter Holman, harpsichordist and organist, who remains the group's director. The other three performers who form the core of the ensemble are violinists Judy Tarling and Theresa Caudle and bass viol and cellist Mark Caudle. Depending on the program, as many as two dozen other performers are added to this core to form a full violin consort, giving it the flexibility to perform works by Praetorius, Lully, Biber, and Purcell, among others. It has even expanded to the size of a Classical period orchestra to make period instrument recordings of early nineteenth century English music. Catherine Bott, Michael Chance, Crispian Steele-Perkins, Elizabeth Wallfisch, and Paul O'Dette are just a few of the soloists who have appeared with the Parley. A recording of Cavalli's Messa concertata with the vocal consort Seicento was the beginning of an examination of important seventeenth century pieces. The Parley's programs are concentrated on one aspect or type of music, for example, "Lachrimae and the Music It Inspired," "Couperin & Charpentier Motets," and "The Concerto in Georgian England." The programs are performed throughout England, in both concert and workshop forms and in BBC Radio broadcasts, and many of them have been recorded on the Hyperion label. The Parley combines its members' knowledge and skill to create a consistent performance style and to present early music for strings as it was first imagined.

Hook was an applied musician who could teach guitar, harpsichord, spinet, violin, the German flute as well as the organ. In Norwich he performed at a variety of concerts and also advertised that he could tune keyboard instruments. At the age of 17 or 18 he went to London where he became the organist at White Conduit House and entertained guests daily. Vauxhall was a second home to him as he was its director. There he composed over 2,000 songs including "The Lass of Richmond Hill," "Lucy Gray of Allendale," and "Within a Mile of Edinboro' Town." Hook composed numerous stage works, cantatas, concertos, chamber pieces, and keyboard works. Much of Hook's music can be described as delightful and charming rather than pedantic and trite as occasions so many prolific song composers. The compositions display the influence of Lord Kelly and J.C. Bach, and later in life, the inlfuence of Haydn. Pedagogically he wrote the "Guida di musica" which demonstrates his ability and concern with teaching. It is a tribute to the merit of his keyboard and concert pieces that they bear revival. Hook's style was consistently up-to-date. ~ Keith Johnson

Jeremiah Clarke was a popular composer and organist around the dawn of the eighteenth century, but his best-known piece was known for years as "Purcell's Trumpet Voluntary."

The man whose music has been played at more nuptials in the English-speaking world than anyone but Wagner or Mendelssohn has no clearly established early history. In 1940 a researcher named E.H. Fellowes tentatively linked him to a family of choir singers at St George's Chapel, Windsor.

The earliest thing we really know about Clarke is that he was a boy choir singer in the Chapel Royal at the time of the coronation of James II. His voice changed in 1692; in that year he became the organist of Winchester College. He left there in 1696, and reappears in the record on June 6, 1699, when he was appointed a vicar-choral of St Paul's Cathedral, London. He received some promotions and titles, and in 1704 took the position of organist of the Chapel Royal, jointly with William Croft.

He wrote attractive and popular theater pieces, many effective anthems, and other sacred music, and some harpsichord pieces including The Prince of Denmark's March, which is the proper name for the piece of worldwide fame known as the Trumpet Voluntary. (The work itself has an interesting history. Its familiar trumpet, organ, and drum arrangement is of contemporary origin, but was inspired by a nineteenth century organ version that ascribed the tune to Henry Purcell, at the time one of the few names known to posterity from the then-shadowy Baroque era.)

Accounts of Clarke's life suggest that he was subject to periods of deep depression. He shot himself and was buried in the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral.

John Gay would probably be remembered today as a minor English poet were it not for The Beggar's Opera. Scathingly satiric, groundbreakingly original, and inordinately popular, it instantly made Gay one of the most famous composers of his day. Even today, Gay is best remembered for The Beggar's Opera, and that masterwork still retains all its power.

Gay attended grammar school as soon as he was old enough, but his parents had both died by 1695, and an uncle took him in until 1702. His poetic gift did not manifest itself immediately, as he apprenticed to a silk merchant in London, returned home briefly and returned to London to work as a secretary. In 1708, however, Gay met Alexander Pope, the greatest poet of his day, and began publishing. Soon he was a member of a famous clique of satirists, the "Martinus Scriblerus Club," comprising not only Gay and Pope, but Jonathan Swift and Dr. John Arbuthnot as well. While most of Gay's output was in the form of satiric poems and essays, he wrote stage works and ballads as well. He found himself involved with London's operatic community when no less a composer than Georg Friederic Handel wrote Acis and Galatea using Gay's libretto; it was Handel's first score for an English libretto.

Yet The Beggar's Opera still seemed to have come out of nowhere. Gay had invented the "ballad opera" form, in which spoken dialogue is combined with popular melodies, and at the same time produced an outrageous satire in which criminality and vice are celebrated, perhaps not wholly ironically. Even Gay's friends were not sure of its merit, and Gay had difficulty in getting it staged. Finally, John Rich at Lincoln's Inns Fields (one of the two major theaters) reluctantly decided to risk production. The Beggar's Opera was first performed on January 29, 1728, and Gay was soon a very famous and rich man. Audiences flocked to hear tales of real inhabitants of the underworld, rather than the two-dimensional figures which populated most operas. These audiences also appreciated the arias, which set words they could understand to tunes they knew. The opera contained attacks on opera itself (Handel's opera Rinaldo was raided for a heroic march which the thieves sing just before setting out for an evening of robbery), English jurisprudence, and conventional ideas of morality; Gay's not-very-subtle attacks on Horace Walpole and his government, however, were what caused Walpole to ban Gay's sequel to The Beggar's Opera, Polly. Polly was unperformed until 1779, when audiences were bewildered by the then-topical references in the text. It never achieved the renown of The Beggar's Opera. Gay composed one more ballad opera, Achilles, but it too was unsuccessful commercially and artistically.

Still, Gay had become a major figure in English literature on the basis of his one stunning success, and when he died, he was buried in the Poet's Corner at Westminster Abbey. Even after Gay's death, however, the ballad opera form he invented lived on, influencing the development of the singspiel of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the much later genre of the American musical. The playright Bertolt Brecht and the composer Kurt Weill paid Gay the ultimate compliment by using his plot and most of his characters in their update of Gay's work, Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera).

The violin was Shield's instrument of choice the playing of which he was quite accomplished. At the age of twenty five he was a member of the King's Haymarket Theatre as a member of the violins but became the leader of the violas. It was not until the age of thirty that he began publishing music. Shield composed approximately thirty operas the first of which was a pastiche, "The Flitch of Bacon," 1778. As in all of Shield's operas two thirds of the music was original but at least one third of the melodies were derived from folk songs, particularly Scottish and Irish folk melodies. Orchestration for his operas was unique and innovative so much so that he became the house composer at Covent Gardens for a period of fifteen years. A number of now familiar tunes were made famous by the works of Shield. In his opera, "Rosina," for example, what is known as "Auld lang syne" was popularized by Shield though not his own music. Likewise the melody for "All those endearing young charms" is found in "The Flitch of Bacon." Though John O'keefe failed to mention Shield in his own autobiography, they collaborated in a number of efforts including "The Poor Soldier" and a number of songs in Moore's compilation of "Irish Melodies." After leaving Covent Gardens, Shield traveled to the continent including the cities of Paris and Rome. On this foray, Shield collected a number of folk melodies contained in a later anthology which also included Bach's Prelude in D minor, the first time any of Bach's preludes from Book 1 had been published. ~ Keith Johnson

A composer who spent some time in London; there he played the flute and oboe for the Italian opera. Barsanti also went to Scotland and lived in Edinburgh where he spent eight years. The compositions of Barsanti were composed primarily in Scotland with a definitive Italian style. Concerto grossi and overtures were his speciality but he also arranged 30 Scotish songs with continuo. His instrumental works were superb especially for the recorder and music employing the timpani. ~ Keith Johnson

Most music lovers have encountered George Frederick Handel through holiday-time renditions of the Messiah's "Hallelujah" chorus. And many of them know and love that oratorio on Christ's life, death, and resurrection, as well as a few other greatest hits like the orchestral Water Music and Royal Fireworks Music, and perhaps bits of Judas Maccabeus or one of the other English oratorios. Yet his operas, for which he was widely known in his own time, are the province mainly of specialists in Baroque music, and the events of his life, even though they reflected some of the most important musical issues of the day, have never become as familiar as the careers of Bach or Mozart. Perhaps the single word that best describes his life and music is "cosmopolitan": he was a German composer, trained in Italy, who spent most of his life in England.

Handel was born in the German city of Halle on February 23, 1685. His father noted but did not nurture his musical talent, and he had to sneak a small keyboard instrument into his attic to practice. As a child he studied music with Friedrich Wilhelm Zachow, organist at the Liebfrauenkirche, and for a time he seemed destined for a career as a church organist himself. After studying law briefly at the University of Halle, Handel began serving as organist on March 13, 1702, at the Domkirche there. Dissatisfied, he took a post as violinist in the Hamburg opera orchestra in 1703, and his frustration with musically provincial northern Germany was perhaps shown when he fought a duel the following year with the composer Mattheson over the accompaniment to one of Mattheson's operas. In 1706 Handel took off for Italy, then the font of operatic innovation, and mastered contemporary trends in Italian opera seria. He returned to Germany to become court composer in Hannover, whose rulers were linked by family ties with the British throne; his patron there, the Elector of Hannover, became King George I of England. English audiences took to his 1711 opera Rinaldo, and several years later Handel jumped at the chance to move to England permanently. He impressed King George early on with the Water Music of 1716, written as entertainment for a royal boat outing. Much of his keyboard music, including the suite with the famous melody "The Harmonious Blacksmith" dates from just before his going to Italy and his first decade in England. For 18 months, between 1717 and 1719, Handel was house composer to the Duke of Chandos, for whom he composed the 11 Chandos Anthems for chorus and string orchestra. He also founded the Royal Academy of Music, a new opera company in London, with the support of the Duke and other patrons. Through the 1720s Handel composed Italian operatic masterpieces for London stages: Ottone, Serse (Xerxes), and other works often based on classical stories. His popularity was dented, though, by new English-language works of a less formal character, and in the 1730s and 1740s, after the Academy failed, Handel turned to the oratorio, a grand form that attracted England's new middle-class audiences. Not only Messiah but also Israel in Egypt, Samson, Saul, and many other works established him as a venerated elder of English music. The oratorios displayed to maximum effect Handel's melodic gift and the sense of timing he brought to big choral numbers. Among the most popular of all the oratorios was Judas Maccabeus, composed in 32 days in 1746. His Concerti grossi, Op. 6, and organ concertos also appeared in the same period. In 1737, Handel suffered a stroke, which caused both temporary paralysis in his right arm and some loss of his mental faculties, but he recovered sufficiently to carry on most normal activity. He was urged to write an autobiography, but never did. Blind in old age, he continued to compose. He died in London on April 14, 1759. More than 3,000 mourners were present for the funeral of the famous composer. He was buried at Westminster Abbey and received full state honors. Beethoven thought Handel the greatest of all his predecessors; he once said, "I would bare my head and kneel at his grave." ~ TiVo Staff

Thomas Arne was born in London to an upholsterer. He attended Eton College to study law, but also undertook violin with Michael Festing against the objections of his father. This disobedience was eventually uncovered, but Arne's father eventually withdrew his opposition and allowed his son to pursue a musical career. Arne got started by providing singing lessons to his brother Richard and sister Susannah; the three of them would present Arne's first masque, Rosamond, at Lincoln's Inn Fields in 1733 (the sister, under her married name of Susannah Cibber, would become the most admired dramatic actress of her age).

Arne married singer Cecelia Young in 1736. Establishing himself as house composer at Drury Lane, in 1737 Arne produced Comus, a masque which introduced, in Burney's words, "an era in English Music." This was followed by the masque Alfred in 1740, including "Rule, Britannia!" -- destined to become one of England's most popular patriotic songs. In 1745, Arne unveiled his arrangement of the English tune "God Save our Noble King" at Drury Lane. As "God Save the King," Arne's setting would be adopted as the national anthem of Britain. 1745 also witnessed the opening of the pleasure gardens of Vauxhall, and Arne was a major contributor of popular songs performed there for nearly two decades.

Owing to a salary dispute with impresario David Garrick, Cibber defected to Covent Garden in 1750, and Arne likewise followed. This led to a bitter competitive battle between the two theaters. In 1755, Cibber would return to Drury Lane, but Arne was out of favor with Garrick, and left for Dublin with his wife and a student, Charlotte Brent. Arne became involved romantically with Brent, and returned to London, leaving his wife behind in Dublin. The difficulty with Garrick still proving an obstacle, Arne took up residence at Covent Garden. There in 1759-1762, Arne produced four works that would set stylistic standards in English theater for generations; first, a revamping of Gay's The Beggar's Opera, and in 1760 Thomas and Sally, the first English comic opera based on an Italian model. Artaxerxes, a grand opera and Arne's crowning artistic achievement, followed in 1762, as did his greatest commercial success, Love in a Village, which introduced pasticcio opera to England.

In 1766, Susannah Cibber died, and Charlotte Brent departed to marry the violinist Thomas Pinto. A revival of Artaxerxes given at Drury Lane in 1768 failed against a competing production at Covent Garden starring Mrs. Pinto. Though mortally wounded in a professional sense, Arne would continue to write and produce a few more stage works, including his lost valedictory effort Caractacus (1776). Arne's fortunes foundered, and by 1770, his wife was petitioning for support. In October 1777, after two decades of separation, Arne and Cecilia were reconciled, but by that time, his health was failing, and he died the following March at age 67.

Outside of Thomas and Sally, the patriotic tunes and some songs, Arne's music went into total eclipse for two centuries, and much of it burned in the Drury Lane fire of 1809. Of Arne's stage works, which numbered over a hundred, only 14 survive. In surviving songs and cantatas, Arne achieves an exquisitely light transparency of texture, and often his orchestration is striking in its boldness and color. His vocal writing is difficult but not showy, it flows naturally, and the frame in which it resides is ordered and direct. He also left some odes, the oratorio Judith, sacred music, four symphonies, several overtures, six keyboard concerti, chamber music, and many fine songs, particularly those on texts of Shakespeare.

Theatrical opera at its best were the products of Charles Dibdin. As a poet, novelist, composer, actor, singer and entertainer it can easily be understood how theatrical musical scores were his forte. It is important to note that most of his successful pantomimes, operettas and theatrical productions were composed by the time he was 25. His truculent behaviour, poor demeanor, ascerbic mannerisms (not to mention the debts that befell him), and apparent arrogance, needless to say, got in his way. Dibdin's compositions had been refreshing, pleasant, and galant. He was one of the few artisans to compose and write the librettos for his own works. Eventually, with his ill-humor, his music became entrenched with his attitudes; it was as if "his" enterprise of writing should be enough. Despite these mannerisms Dibdin's songs in the last decade of the 18th century were numerous and popular. The songs were trenchantly biased. "Lionel and Clarissa" was his most accomplished work with a libretto by Bickerstaffe. "Love in a Village" was his most successful composition and includes an action paced scene with the heroine singing and fighting simultaneously. This was a first for the English stage. Dibdin was a prolific composer and wrote an exhaustive amount of playhouse operas, pantomimes, pieces for the Royal Circus, table entertainments and a variety of songs. Written works include "The Professional Life of Mr. Dibdin," "A Complete History of the English Stage," and "Hannah Hewit, or the Female Crusoe". ~ Keith Johnson