In memory of Kader Hassissi, co-founder and director of the Beaune Festival, who passed away last summer at the end of the fortieth edition, Paul Mc Creesh and his Gabrieli Consort and Players, faithful among the faithful to the Festival, have imagined this opening evening devoted to Purcell’s odes, a repertoire in which they are perhaps without rivals today. A time for meditation, with Let mine eyes run down with tears, one of the composer’s most profound and powerful pieces, and excerpts from the Funeral of Queen Mary, a tribute to the beloved sovereign and friend of the arts who died in her prime, and whom Purcell would follow into the grave only a few months later. But also a time for hope, for the spiritual jubilation of the arts, stronger than human finitude. Few works in the entire repertoire manage to celebrate the power of Art as dazzlingly as the Ode to Saint Cecilia, the patron saint of musicians. Instruments and voices mingle in airy volutes and playful polyphony, served here by one of the most beautiful teams of soloists one could ever dream of.