A first-ever complete recording for keyboard collections which capture the elegance and cosmopolitan style of Georgian-era English music.
Maurice Greene (1696-1755) belongs to the generation that followed Henry Purcell and preceded Handel. Becoming organist of St Paul’s Cathedral in 1719, and in 1735 organist and composer to the Chapel Royal, he wrote a good deal of church music which is still in use today: memorably simple but effective anthems such as Thou visitest the earth and Lord, let me know mine end.
Much less well known – and most of it previously unrecorded – is Greene’s corpus of instrumental music. Published in 1745, his Six Overtures in Seven Parts alternate a slow and solemn French-style overture with fugal Allegros and elegant dance movements such as Minuets, Gavottes or Airs. The original orchestral scores have recently attracted a recording: Fernando De Luca has made his own arrangements for solo harpsichord, following a long-standing practice and retaining the essential exuberance of the Overtures while inflecting them with refined dynamic shading.
Rarer still are the 15 keyboard ‘Lessons’: Italianate suites which bear witness to a transition from the contrapuntal Baroque style to a more Galant idiom, under the influence of Italian exemplars such as Corelli and Geminiani, as well as the seductive charms of French culture which captivated the upper end of Georgian culture and society.
William Boyce (1711-1779) studied with Greene and followed in the footsteps of his teacher by attaining the same distinguished posts at St Paul’s and the Chapel Royal. Again principally known for his church music, he also wrote a collection of overtures which have retained popularity on the fringes of the catalogue. His Voluntaries for the Organ or Harpsichord (published posthumously, in London, c.1779) represent one of the final great expressions of the genre in their refined counterpoint and graceful harmonies.
‘Harpsichordist Fernando De Luca does a splendid job,’ remarked the Fanfare magazine reviewer of the Brilliant Classics album dedicated to the music of Pierre-Claude Foucquet: one of many comprehensive collections through which De Luca has revived lesser known composers of the 18th century. This volume of Boyce and Greene stands as a notable addition to the library.
