Waking (for the third time, dammit) just after 6.30 this morning and tuning to Radio 3, I found Petroc Trelawny marking a musical anniversary – the first performance, in 1692, of The Fairy-Queen, Purcell's take on A Midsummer Night's Dream (which actually has rather little to do with the play itself). Petroc played a strikingly beautiful plaint, 'O Let Me Weep', which I don't remember hearing before. This was followed by the great Maurizio Pollini playing a Chopin nocturne (No 2 in E flat), and by then it was time for Bach Before 7: this morning a fragment of a multi-instrumental concerto (three trumpets for starters) that was probably intended as the introductory Sinfonia of a lost cantata. (And talking of lost music, the score of The Fairy-Queen was lost after Purcell's death, and only recovered in the early 20th century)...
Some time after 7, I drifted off to sleep again, with the comfortable feeling that half hours like that one almost justify the licence fee. Almost. Actually I'd happily pay a licence fee just for Radio 3 – especially as it would only be a few quid.
Here is 'O Let Me Weep', wonderfully simple and wonderfully profound, like so much of Purcell..
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