If: Michael Nyman, Henry Purcell

Editors’ Notes Michael Nyman’s love for Henry Purcell’s music came to prominence in his intoxicating soundtrack to the 1982 film The Draughtsman’s Contract. That mix of English Baroque and Nyman’s fertile imagination has produced much besides. This beautiful, haunting album exploring a unique musical fusion unites Iestyn Davies’ incomparable countertenor with viol consort Fretwork. Nyman’s suite No Time in Eternity, setting poetry by Robert Herrick, pulses elegiacally. Purcell’s “Music for a While” is sultrily performed and Nyman’s response, “Music After a While,” winds restlessly on Purcell’s original ground bass. But it’s the short title track that steals the show: a simple, affecting song of regret and hope.