Handel-Purcell Celebrations

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28822, 17 February 1959, Page 15

Handel-Purcell Celebrations

The tercentenary of Purcell’s birth and/the bicentenary of Handel’s death are to be commemorated in London by a three-week festival, says “The Times. 0 London has, of course, a particular interest in these two composers, since both of them lived and worked in London and both are buried in Westminster Abbey. The festival, which is being organised by the Arts Council, the British Council, the 8.8. C., the British Museum, and the Londop County Council, will be held from June 8 to June 27.

Among the dramatic works to be given will be Handel’s “Samson,” which the Covent Garden Opera Company is to revive. It is hoped that the first performance will be on the opening day. followed by two or three further performances during the festival. “Rodelinda” and “Semele” will -be presented by the Handel Opera Society at Sadler’s Wells from June 23, and at the Festival Hall on June 24 the Bach Choir will be heard in “Solomon.” The Old Vic Company has been invited to give several performances of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” in the adaptation by Dryden and Davenant, and with the whole of Purcell’s incidental music. It is not certain that the company will be able to accept the invitation for “various financial and other reasons.”' Plans are also in hand for a full stage presentation of Purcell’s “Dido and Aeneas,” though “The Fairy Queen” will have to be content with a concert performance of the work at the Victoria and Albert Museum on June 14. Purcell’s “King Arthur” will also be heard in a concert version at the Festival Hall on June 17. The L.C.C. will present two Purcell programmes at the Festival Hall, on June 9 and 16, and a concert of Handel’s music in the same hall on June 23.

The Royal Philharmonic Society will present a combined concert at the Festival Hall on June 10. The conductors will be Sir Arthur Bliss and Benjamin Britten. • On June 15, in St Bartholomew’s Church, the London Bach Society will present a programme of Purcell’s choral music, and at the British Museum from the beginning of May there will be an exhibition of about 250 items, including autograph copies of important works by Purcell and HandeL A Purcell service in Westminster Abbey on June 11 will repeat the music written by him for the funeral of Queen Mary, which music was used again a few months later for Purcell’s own funeral. On June 25, also in the Abbey, there will be a programme of Handel’s mpsic. Art Gallery Lectures The director of the Auckland City Art Gallery, Mr P. Tomcry, will give a lecture at Gallery 91, in Cashel street, on Friday evening. On February 23 and 25 Mr Russell Clark will demonstrate the processes involved in carving stone,