Consonant Connections: lute songs with Anglo-Dutch links (Musicke in the Ayre)

This programme was specially commissioned to complement the Prized Possessions exhibition at the Holburne Museum of Dutch masterpieces in National Trust houses. Gillian and Din have based their recital around Constantijn Huygens – musician, poet, art connoisseur and statesman (and discoverer of Rembrandt) – who, during his visits to the Jacobean Court, met London-based musicians Lanier (himself an artist and Royal art procurer), Gaultier and Foscarini. As well as songs and solos for lute and baroque guitar by these composers (and by Huygens himself), this programme includes works by Peter Philips and Richard Dering, English Catholics exiled in the Netherlands, and also by Henry Purcell during the reign of William and Mary who arrived in the Glorious Revolution.