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John Eliot Gardiner TITLE: Purcell: King Arthur (2CD) Label: PRX/Warner Classics/Parlophone - With it's lavish music and elaborate staging, the semi-opera King Arthur is one of the master-pieces in Purcell's works. On a text by the poet John Dryden very freely inspired from Arthurian legend and specifically devised for him, Purcell created a work of great expressive intensity which includes many of his most beautiful and well-known arias The importance of Monteverdi to John Eliot Gardiner is signalled by the fact that, when he founded a choir in 1964, it was for a performance of Monteverdi Vespers. The Monteverdi Choir went on to celebrate it's 50th anniversary in 2014 with a performance of the same work. Units Per Set: 2