Voices of Music Presents a Valentines’ “Rerun”

This afternoon the Voices of Music Sunday Mornings at Ten program presented a rerun of a program entitled Love is in the Air Valentine Special, which was performed three years ago. This turned out to be a marathon of 33 selections from video recordings of past performances, resulting in an overall duration of about three hours. Regardless of what one may think about Valentine’s Day, this was the perfect way to stay indoors and avoid the rainy afternoon!

The entire performance was structured as a YouTube playlist. One simply had to go to the home page for the entire program and click the “Play all” button. YouTube would then automatically advance through the 33 Web sites in the order found on the home page.

Since YouTube has done it for me, I shall not provide readers with a blow-by-blow account of all 33 of the compositions. Rather, I shall call attention to some of my more memorable personal moments. One of these was the surprise that only one of the selections was by Johann Sebastian Bach. Soprano Laura Heimes sang the first aria in the BWV 213 cantata Laßst uns sorgten, laßst uns wachen (let us take care, let us watch over). (“For the record,” as they say, this aria was a revision of one of the arias in the BWV 248 Christmas Oratorio.)

Soprano Anna Dennis preparing to sing “Fairest Isle” (screen shot from the Voices of Music video)

There were also back-to-back performances of two settings of texts by William Shakespeare. Soprano Anna Davis sang “Take, O take those lips away;” and her performance was followed by one of “It was a lover and his lass,” composed by Thomas Morley and sung by Jennifer Ellis Campani. Towards the end of the program, Shakespeare reappears with two compositions by Anthony Holborne, “The Fairie Round” and “Hearts-Ease.” These were flanked on either side by soprano Anna Dennis singing “Fairest Isle” from Henry Purcell’s Z. 628 “semi-opera,” King Arthur.

Bear in mind, however, I am just accounting for my favorites. To be fair, each of the 33 videos is a gem unto itself. There may be some questions about any connection to Valentine’s Day. Nevertheless, all of the selections were irresistible; and that is really all that matters!