Wigmore Hall celebrates St Cecilia on her annual festival with the greatest of Purcell’s Odes.

Hail, bright Cecilia, the Ode for St Cecilia’s Day 1692, belongs to a distinctive English tradition of honouring music’s patron saint.

Purcell here enriches Nicholas Brady’s sonorous verse with music packed with expressive subtleties, tonal variety and compelling textural contrasts.

John Butt and his Dunedin Consort, acclaimed for their interpretations of masterworks by Bach and Handel, invariably find fresh ways of bringing Baroque music to life. They recently added Hail, bright Cecilia to their repertoire and developed their interpretation with a series of concerts in 2015.