Gabriel - An entertainment with Trumpet

I went to the Saffron Hall Saturday evening to see Gabriel - An entertainment with Trumpet.

When I bought my ticket I just knew that it was based around Trumpeter Alison Balsom. I had seen her before and  she is very irritating... talented, good look and seemingly very nice.....  seriously it was one of my favourite concerts of the season.

When I arrived I bought a coffee and read the programme... oh there are singers? ACTORS? WTF??

Anyway Gabriel came about as Alison wanted to play Shakespeare's globe and it is a series of plays about real life stories set around the mid 1690's (this was all set around the court of William and Mary) interspersed mainly with the music of Henry Purcell.

An you know what it worked! Boy did it worked.... the band were the English Concert and all the musicians were dressed casually. Alison (I feel such a pseud but Balsom sounds worse) talked to us.

The stories were funny and moving and the music fitted. One of the characters was John Shore who was Sergeant Trumpeter to the court and is credited with demonstrating that the trumpet which up till then had been a military instrument could be used in an orchestral role. At one point they played some Handel which they admitted hadn't been written at the time but Shore had pieces written for him by Handel later so fair enough.

Another character was Arabella Hunt vocalist to Queen Mary who actually married a man who turned out to be a woman.

The 3 singers were excellent I can sometimes take or leave soprano's but Elizabeth Watts was superb. They all were.

Kudos to writer Samuel Adamson, this was by turns sad, heart warming and funny. It wasn't at all stuffy.  One of the best evenings out in a long time.