Purcell: King Arthur, Music for Queen Mary, The Tempest [9 CDs]

As John Eliot Gardiner converted his Monteverdi Orchestra to early instruments in the mid-1970s and renamed it the English Baroque Soloists, he engaged his magnificent instrumentalists, choir and a host of first-class soloists in the most emblematic works by "the Greatest Genius we [England] ever had": Henry Purcell! He reception was unanimously enthusiastic and led Diapason to say: "Gardiner's reading of Purcell, dramatic, hyper-refined, sometimes burning, overwhelming, at all times enchanting, cannot escape the discography of the enlightened music lover. Purcell himself is there!"