Patrick Ayrton - Astrophil and Stella [CD]

Format: CD
Catalogue No.: VCM171
Barcode: 5060140212706
Release Date: 05 Sep 2025
Genre: Classical / Early Music  

Astrophil & Stella is the fruit of a life’s devotion to the spirit and craft of 17th-century music. Harpsichordist, conductor, and composer Patrick Ayrton has delved into the intricate fabric of this era’s compositions, unearthing its hidden mechanisms and timeworn secrets. The result is a song cycle of his own, for soprano and instrumental ensemble. 
 
Historically, the art of composing was not merely a skill but the very lifeblood of every musician, and to compose was to speak the language of the present. Thus, Patrick does not aim to simply revive the past, but to rekindle a tradition, one that hovers between memory and reinvention. In his hands, ancient forms breathe anew, woven with reverence, yet subtly imbued with his own artistic voice. 
 
He writes: “I believe that the line between improvisation and composition is a fragile, blurry and undefined one. Could some of the great works not simply be the crystallising of numerous extemporisations? The fact is that after many decades of “inventing at the keyboard” (with a considerate dose of trail and error!), I began, in 2022, for the first time, to set things to paper, with Purcell and his contemporaries as a main source of inspiration. Born of an enduring fascination with this repertoire, Astrophil & Stella is a love letter to the English Baroque - with its sinuous melodies, refined ambiguities of modulation, and tender reminiscences of old folk ballads - qualities that have long inspired me." 

All these elements converge in a joyful tribute, at once intimate and expansive, deeply rooted yet untethered by time.

Track Listing:
1. Oh, For a Bowl of Fat Canary
2. Fairy Revels
3. Ouverture
4. Where the bee sucks
5. Come, sleep!
6. Witches’ Song
7. Sublunar Pavan
8. Sublunar Galliard

9. Syrinx
10. With how sad steps, O Moon, thou clim'st the skies
11. A Wanderer’s Fantasy
12. Fairy Land
13. The Break of Day
14. The Willow Song
15. Under the greenwood tree
16. Oh, that joy so soon should waste