7th BAROQUE MUSIC FESTIVAL: THE AGE OF EXPERIMENTATION
MAD SONGS – ENGLAND, 2nd HALF OF THE 17th CENTURY

---

Artistic supervision of the festival Dimos Goudaroulis

---

During the second half of the 17th century, a song genre flourished in England that soon became very popular. It combined poetry, drama and music in an original way and became known as Mad Songs. Composers such as Henry and David Purcell, John Blow and John Eccles wrote a wealth of songs with highly experimental character, complex forms and melodies, bold harmonies and dramatic emotional changes inspired by the theme of madness. French soprano Chantal Santon Jeffery, who performs in Europe’s greatest halls, operas and festivals, is joined by a Franco-Greek ensemble of outstanding musicians. Together, they present the Mad Songs, usually written for voice and bass continuo, in original transcriptions that emphasize the distinctive and refined timbres of the ensemble’s rare baroque instruments.