Classical home listening - animal magic, Purcell's stage music and Pelham Humfrey

The Guardian 0

All creatures great and small and mythical feature on Ensemble Dragma’s latest album

• Animal magic as never before: Song of Beasts: Fantastic Creatures in Medieval Song (Ramée), by Ensemble Dragma, features 14th- and 15th-century works related to animals. The beasts are grouped under six headings, among them Hear Me Roar, On the Art of Hunting and On Bats and Mice. If you’ve seen creatures depicted in carvings on church pews, ivories, or in the bestiaries popular in the period, you’ll respond to these spare, atmospheric songs.

The singer is (chiefly) Agnieszka Budzińska-Bennett, who also plays harp, with Marc Lewon and Jane Achtman on vielle and lute. There’s also an accompanying film. Best known among the composers is Guillaume de Machaut (c1300-77), whose ballade Une Vipere opens: “A viper lives in my lady’s bosom”. The poor lover is slain by her basilisk gaze. Nothing furry or cuddly here.