Love’s Sickness
February 8, 2024 | Blue Gallery
A Golden Wire Ensemble
Nola Richardson soprano
Kevin Payne lute
Illustrated talk by Parker Ramsay
Music by Purcell, Hume, Lanier, Corkine, Jenkins, Corbetta, Marais, D'Urfey, Blow, Eccles, Lawes
Photographs by Alex Fedorov © 2024
Baroque English love songs explore a myriad of emotions. Beyond happiness and light; they can also resound with despair and even sickness. Soprano Nola Richardson graces the stage alongside period-instrument ensemble A Golden Wire to weave a tapestry of seventeenth-century English songs that captures the many colors of love’s emotional spectrum. From poignant yearning for the affection of Classically inspired figures such as Selina and Celia, to the haunting laments that echoed within the walls of Bedlam, or the fearful soliloquies of a bereaved mother, composers from William Lawes to Henry Purcell harnessed music’s full expressive potential. Through their artistry, they unveiled the profound depths of human sentiment, which mere words could never hope to convey.