Music crying out to be heard: the first instalment of Arcangelo’s English Baroque Journey at Wigmore Hall focused on sacred music for the Chapel Royal

Chapel Royal at St James’s Palace

The Music More Full Than It Was: Christopher Gibbons, Matthew Locke, Pelham Humfrey, John  Blow, Purcell, Handel, Maurice Greene; Arcangelo, Jonathan Cohen; Wigmore Hall
Reviewed 30 October 2026

Exploring sacred music from the Restoration through to early Handel with a focus on the Chapel Royal, Arcangelo give us vibrant performances of lesser-known gems, music crying out to be heard

Histories of English music have a tendency to jump from Purcell to Handel as if they were the only major figures at the time. In fact, Purcell’s friend and teacher, Blow, had as great a reputation as the younger composer during his lifetime and there were plenty of other composers whose music deserves to be part of the story. 

At Wigmore Hall on Friday 30 October 2026, Jonathan Cohen and Arcangelo presented The Music More Full Than It Was, the first event in the ensemble’s multi-concert English Baroque Journey. For this first instalment we concentrated on sacred music with the programme that included music by Christopher Gibbons (1615-1676), Matthew Locke (c.1621-1677), Pelham Humfrey (1647-1674), John Blow (1649-1708), Henry Purcell (1659-1695), George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) , and Maurice Greene (1696-1755), taking us from the revival of the Chapel Royal after the Restoration through to Handel writing in the early years of his residency in England.

There were eight singers – Hilary Cronin, Daisy Livesy, James Hall, Jeremy Budd, Hugo Brady, Matthew Long, Malachy Frame, Will Gaunt – and an instrumental ensemble of six strings, oboe (in Handel’s Chandos Anthem), organ, theorbo and harpsichord (play by Jonathan Cohen). The singers fluidly moved between solo and ensemble and only in Handel’s Chandos Anthem, O praise the Lord with one consent were there distinct arias. Similarly, the instrumental forces used moved between just continuo to full ensemble with a varied line up (oboe only in Handel, but no viola in some).

The music of the first half explored works that arose after the Restoration, Christopher Gibbons’ Not unto us, O Lord, Matthew Locke’s How doth the city sit solitary, Pelham Humfrey’s O give thanks unto the Lord and John Blow’s God spake sometimes in visions, the music dating from the period 1664 to 1685.

Christopher Gibbons, as the son of Orlando Gibbons, was well placed to take up the challenge of writing for the restored Chapel Royal. Not unto us, O Lord started low in the voices and instruments (no violins), and gradually built, creating slow, serious counterpoint. Rich, rather gorgeous, slow moving textures given a vibrant sound. Matthew Locke was involved in the early pre-Purcell semi-opera and theatrical experiments. As a Catholic, he wrote for the chapel of Queen Catherine (of Braganza), but wrote for the Chapel Royal too. How doth the city sit solitary is a verse anthem, solos and small groups interweaving with tutti, accompanied by just continuo. The full ensemble got little to do, and we could imagine Locke taking care not to tax the trebles (the Restoration found itself rather lacking in trained treble voices), and solo groupings focused on the men, though there were soprano solos. It was a serious and rather moving setting, with the sort of detailed attention to the words that we get from Purcell.

We then had an instrumental interlude, Purcell’s Pavan in G minor Z752, which began with a substantial slow movement, intense and very chromatic, followed by a ground bass dance.

Pelham Humfrey was one of the boys brought in to be trained as a treble for the Chapel Royal. His talents went beyond that and King Charles sent him to France to train as a composer, though the best known fact about that is Samuel Pepys’ famous put down. O give thanks unto the Lord began with a very civilised string introduction before a lively choral dance. String ritornellos linked the various sections together so that everything flowed beautifully. Hugo Brady and Malachy Frame gave us a fine duet, with Will Gaunt following this with a vibrant bass solo, though the whole of the long final section was tutti, all vibrantly sung with terrific detail. We ended the first half with John Blow, a composer whose modern neglect in concert is due not to the quality of the music but because much of his output does not fit into modern concert situations easily. God spake sometimes in visions began in stately manner with a string introduction. The first tutti section was sober and stately, though the solo sections had a lovely lightness to them and dance was never far away. Vibrantly performed, both singers and instrumentalists moved fluidly through the piece’s frequent changes of metre, speed and style. Again there was a lovely detail to the word setting, and it benefitted from being performed in Wigmore Hall. You imagined much of this fastidiousness would be lost in a larger cathedral acoustic.

After the interval we moved forward in time. Maurice Greene was made Master of the King’s Musick under King George I, yet Handel remained the preferred composer for the Hanoverians and the two composers had an uneasy relationship. Despite being some 14 years younger than Handel, Greene’s music can have a somewhat backward-looking feel to it. Lord, let me know mine end, set for full vocal ensemble and continuo, was a sober piece, the vocal writing flowing over a ground bass. Though there was plenty of movement, it remained a serious and intent piece. Terrific in its way but more influenced by the work of the composers in the first half than the ‘fam’d Italian masters’ and definitely no match for Handel’s brilliance.

Purcell’s My beloved spake is an early work, written in his late teens. Its use of the full vocal ensemble was sparing, simply singing short choruses whilst the verses were all taken by small vocal groups taken from James Hall, Matthew Long, Malachy Frame and Will Gaunt, the sections all linked by ritornellos. It was vibrantly performed, with a fabulous sense of colouring the words and the dance never far away.

We ended with one of Handel’s Chandos Anthems, written for the Duke of Chandos and performed in the church of St Lawrence that was completed well before his great mansion of Canons was finished. As such, it is one of the buildings surviving where we see (and hear) where Handel performed. O praise the Lord with one consent began in an infectiously perky manner, with the singers giving us vivid rhythms. Hugo Brady’s solo had something of a lilt to it with Brady singing in lovely affecting tone. Matthew Long in his solo combined some lively rhythms with fine passagework, then Malachy Frame sang with robust, resonant tone. The final solo was from Hilary Cronin, lyrical and rather intimate, followed by the lively final choruses full of rhythmic acuity and, in the ‘Alleluia’, vivid runs.