AGONY & ECSTASY
Charpentier & Purcell

Purcell’s Welcome to All the Pleasures bursts with an exuberant energy and sensuous lyricism exalting the power of music, while Charpentier’s Le reniement de saint Pierre plunges into the depths of anguish, capturing Peter’s denial of Christ with a gripping emotional force.

REPERTOIRE
Henry Purcell
Welcome to All the Pleasures (Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day), Z. 339

Marc-Antoine Charpentier
Le reniement de saint Pierre, H. 424

SOLOISTS
TBD, soprano
TBD, soprano
Jay Carter, countertenor
TBD, tenor
Paul Max Tipton, bass-baritone

DATES & VENUES

Saturday, March 20, 2027, 7:00 p.m.
The Conrad Prebys Performing Arts Center
7600 Fay Ave, La Jolla, CA 92037

Sunday, March 21, 2027, 4:00 p.m.
All Souls’ Episcopal Church
1475 Catalina Blvd, San Diego, CA 92107

EVENT DURATION
TBD

INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT THIS CONCERT

• Purcell was recognized even in his own time as a singularly masterful composer, as he was granted the rare honor of a burial adjacent to the organ in Westminster Abbey. His posthumous collection of songs, entitled Orpheus Brittanicus, mentions in its preface Purcell’s “peculiar Genius to express the energy of English Words, whereby he mov'd the Passions of all his Auditors.”

• By contrast, his contemporary Charpentier never attained a post at the French court, being overshadowed by the more politically astute Jean-Baptiste Lully. His own musical epitaph includes the following self-appraisal: “I was a musician, considered good by the good ones, scorned as ignorant by the ignorant. And since those who scorned me were much more numerous than those who lauded me, music became to me a small honor and a heavy burden.”