Rachel Baptist
Ireland’s Black Syren
PETER WHELAN IRISH BAROQUE ORCHESTRA
RACHEL REDMOND
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TRACKLIST
ENGLISH
BIOGRAPHIES
Rachel Baptist
Ireland’s Black Syren
PETER WHELAN director
IRISH BAROQUE ORCHESTRA
RACHEL REDMOND soprano
George Frideric Handel (1685–1759)
Sinfonia (from Samson, HWV 57)
1. Andante 3:16
2. Allegro 1:38
3. Menuetto 2:18
4. Mirth, admit me of thy crew 3:45
(from L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, HWV 55)
5. Softly sweet in Lydian measures 3:25
(from Alexander’s Feast, HWV 75)
Alla Caccia ʻDiana cacciatrice’, HWV 79
6. La Marche 1:41
4 7. Recitativo: Alla caccia 0:34
8. Aria: Foriera la tromba 3:36
9. Coro: Alla caccia° 1:54
Niccolò Pasquali (c. 1718–1757)
Overture (from The Grand Festino)*
10. Allegro 1:55
11. Larghetto 1:38
12. Presto 2:05
13. Let earth and air and ocean 3:10
(from The Triumphs of Hibernia)*
14. Nature first played well her part 7:03
(from Nymphs of the Springs)*
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Francesco Geminiani (1687–1762)
15. Concerto grosso in D minor ʻLa Folia’, Op. 5 No. 12 11:42
Henry Purcell (c. 1659–1695)
16. Fairest isle (from King Arthur) 5:29
° AISLING KENNY echo soprano
* PREMIERE RECORDING
Total Running Time 55:13
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Rachel Baptist MENU
Ireland’s Black Syren
On 25 July 1752, a notice appeared in The Dublin Journal advertising a
‘Grand Concert of Vocal and Instrumental Musick’ for ‘the Benefit of Miss Baptist’.
Set to take place the following month at the fashionable pleasure garden of
Marlborough Green (near the present-day site of the Abbey Theatre), audience
members were promised ‘several new songs’, a solo and concerto led by violinist
Samuel Lee, along with concertos for French horn, the concert concluding with
the usual exhibition of ‘Grand Fire-Works’. Tickets were available for purchase
from the venue itself, from a print-shop on Cork Hill (beside Dublin Castle), and
from ‘Miss Baptist’s Lodgings in Grangegorman-lane’ at the western fringe of
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the city.
Who was this singer, ‘Miss Baptist’ (or ‘Baptiste’), who enjoyed enough
standing in Dublin’s musical circles to organize her own benefit concert?
Evidence is limited, but what is known about her is tantalizing. One of the
best descriptions of her from this time is by the writer and performer John
O’Keeffe. He recalled attending concerts at Marlborough Green as a boy:
‘among the many fine singers there was Rachel Baptiste, a real black woman,
a native of Africa: she always appeared in the orchestra in a yellow silk gown,
and was heard by the applauding company with great delight, without remarks
upon her sables.’ The reference to ‘her sables’ indicates her dark complexion,
and the lack of response to this – reflecting the apparent tolerance of Dublin
audiences – was itself worthy of comment. However, while Rachel Baptist may
ultimately have been of African descent, her own origins did not stretch that
far. The first reference to Baptist in print, advertising her presence in a benefit
concert for her teacher, Bernardo Palma, in early 1750, describes her and fellow-
artist Miss Pocklington as ‘Natives of this Country’, suggesting they were both
born in Ireland.
Rachel Baptist’s presence in Dublin made her one of as many as
possibly 1,000 to 3,000 black people living in Ireland during the latter half of
the eighteenth century. These were mostly descended from enslaved people
who themselves had been transported from West Africa to the Caribbean and
other parts of the Americas. Ireland was not directly involved in the trans-
Atlantic slave trade, but it was nevertheless part of the wider ‘Atlantic World’,
and the Irish economy was heavily invested in the commerce of slave-produced
goods, notably sugar. The Irish role in Atlantic trade was not confined to the
networks of the British Empire, and included trade with and, in some cases, 7
ownership of plantations located in Danish, Dutch and, most especially, French
colonies. When freed, a slave needed to choose a surname under which to be
registered (their original family name having been long lost), and ‘Baptiste’ –
a common name in France at this time – suggests that Rachel Baptist was
possibly descended from slaves freed in a French Caribbean colony such as
Saint-Domingue (now Haiti) or Guadeloupe. Trade links between Ireland and
France were extensive during this period and, where goods circulated, people
followed. Newspaper records attest to the presence of black people throughout
Ireland at this time, employed largely as domestic servants, but there were
black musicians and stage performers as well. Of these, Rachel Baptist is one of
very few whose name survives.
She sang regularly in Dublin between 1750 and 1753, with twice-weekly
appearances every summer at Marlborough Green, as well as performances at
Crow Street Music Hall and the Theatre Royal, Smock Alley. Her appearances
lessened in the next three years, and the last time she is recorded performing
in Dublin is at a concert in July 1756, which included the oratorio The Triumphs
of Hibernia. She then moved to England, where she is occasionally listed giving
concerts in London, Bath, Liverpool, and other provincial centres, before
returning to Ireland. Her return (married, as ‘Mrs Crow’) was heralded by a
successful set of concerts at the Tholsel, Kilkenny, in December 1767, which led
to performances in Clonmel and Limerick. Now called the ‘Celebrated Black
Syren’, her appearance in Kilkenny coincided with that of the castrato Giusto
Ferdinando Tenducci, alongside performances by Thomas Ryder’s acclaimed
touring theatre company. Responding to this rich array of talent, Finn’s Leinster
Journal described Kilkenny as being ‘a Capua, a town of Pleasure, rather than a
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town of Trade’. After this, Baptist’s career continued a few years more, and the
last that is heard of this singer is in listings for concerts given at Belfast, Lisburn,
and Carrickfergus in April 1773.
Her many performances at Marlborough Green brought her into contact
with musicians from Smock Alley Theatre, notably the countertenor Daniel
Sullivan with whom she regularly performed. Her repertoire, typical for a singer
at the pleasure gardens, would have drawn on traditional Irish and Scottish airs,
popular theatre songs, and arias from cantatas and oratorios, including pieces
by George Frideric Handel, William Boyce, Thomas Arne and Niccolò Pasquali.
Samson, completed by Handel shortly before he travelled to Dublin,
eventually had its premiere there in February 1748. This was directed by violinist
Matthew Dubourg, who had also led the first performance of the oratorio in
London in 1743. Samson was regularly heard in Dublin from this time, both later
again in 1748, and every year up to 1753. Handel’s L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il
Moderato and Alexander’s Feast were each presented in Dublin by the composer
himself during his stay in 1741–42, and both were frequently revived in the years
that followed.
The pastoral ode L’Allegro sets (and interweaves) verses from John
Milton’s poems ‘L’Allegro’ and ‘Il Penseroso’, balancing competing themes
of mirth and melancholy. Allegra, having banished Melancholy, compares
her freedom to that of the morning lark as she sings ‘Mirth, admit me of thy
crew’, her soprano voice matched by the brilliantly soaring lines of the violins.
Alexander’s Feast, setting John Dryden’s panegyric on the power of music,
includes the calmly poised soprano aria ‘Softly sweet in Lydian measures’,
its evocative mood echoed by the accompanying cello solo. Dating back to
Handel’s apprentice years in Italy, the cantata Diana cacciatrice (Diana the 9
Huntress) was commissioned by Handel’s early patron, Marchese Francesco
Maria Ruspoli, for performance at his country palazzo. The cantata’s hunting
theme, enlivened with classical references and the heroic pairing of soprano
and trumpet, honoured Ruspoli and his love of hunting.
The violinist and composer Francesco Geminiani was the most famous of
the many Italian musicians who spent time in Dublin during the mid-eighteenth
century. His twelve concerti grossi, arrangements of Arcangelo Corelli’s Op. 5
sonatas, appeared in London in two volumes during the 1720s. The final work
of this collection is the Concerto grosso No. 12 in D minor, a fine arrangement
of Corelli’s celebrated variations on ‘La Folia’. Another Italian musician who
worked in Dublin was Niccolò Pasquali, brought there from London in 1748 by
Thomas Sheridan, manager of the Smock Alley Theatre, to direct the theatre’s
music. In his three years in Ireland, Pasquali composed music for three masques, MENU
including The Triumphs of Hibernia, along with music for productions of several of
Shakespeare’s plays at Smock Alley, and an overture to Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater
for its Irish premiere (which Pasquali directed) in 1749.
Pasquali published collections of overtures and English songs on his
return to London, with music from his time in Dublin. This included the overture
to an entertainment described as a ‘Grand Festino in the Italian Manner’ (given
at Aungier Street Theatre in 1748 to celebrate the birthday of King George II), as
well as the song ‘Nature first played well her part’ from Nymphs of the Springs –
the only part of this masque, apart from its overture, to survive. While the 1756
performance of The Triumphs of Hibernia – in which Rachel Baptist performed –
was described as ‘a new Oratorio’, it is likely that this drew on Pasquali’s earlier
masque, especially as the text of the soprano air ‘Let earth and air and ocean’ is in
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the libretto of that work.
Of all Henry Purcell’s music for the theatre, the patriotic semi-opera King
Arthur proved especially popular throughout the eighteenth century and was
often revived at Smock Alley Theatre, with performances in 1750 and 1753.
Its closing sequence features a masque in praise of Britannia, with songs and
dances, during which Venus enters, singing ‘Fairest isle, all isles excelling, seat of
pleasure and of love’.
© Michael Lee, 2024
4. Mirth, admit me of thy crew
Mirth, admit me of thy crew,
To live with her, and live with thee,
In unreproved pleasures free:
To hear the lark begin his flight,
And singing startle the dull night:
Then to come, in spite of sorrow,
And at my window bid good morrow:
Mirth, admit me of thy crew!
5. Softly sweet in Lydian measures
Softly sweet in Lydian measures,
Soon he sooth’d the soul to pleasures.
Diana cacciatrice Diana the huntress
6. La Marche [Sinfonia]
7. Alla caccia, alla caccia, To the hunt, to the hunt,
o mie ninfe seguaci, O nymphs that follow me,
pria che il sol coi suoi raggi il giorno indori, before the sun’s rays gild the day
l’armi ogn’una prepari, let each of you prepare your weapons and
e il can veloce al proprio branco affidi. assign your speedy dog to its proper pack.
Già son pronti i destrieri: The horses are now ready:
andiam su liete alla vicina selva, let us go joyfully to the forest nearby
dei cignali alla preda e d’ogni belva. to hunt boars and any other wild beast.
8. Foriera la tromba The signalling trumpet
la meta c’addita, shows the way,
col suono c’invita its sound invites us
a un sì lieto dì. to this joyous day.
E allorché rimbomba And when it blares
con voce scolpita, with its sculpted voice,
un’eco l’imita, it is imitated by an echo,
dicendo così: calling like this:
Foriera la tromba … The signalling trumpet …
9. Alla caccia, alla caccia, To the hunt, to the hunt,
mie fide compagne, my faithful companions,
e solo un momento and just for a moment
ognuna dal core let all of you banish
del nume d’amore and disable from your hearts
si privi e disfaccia. the god of love.
Di questa selva fra dubbie vie Along the uncertain paths of this forest
Melampo fido sia scorta al piè. let the trusty Melampo guide my feet.1
Nulla pavento, sia notte o die, I fear nothing, whether night or day,
mentre sicura son di sua fè. as I am sure of his loyalty.
Alla caccia … To the hunt …
Translation by David Vickers, 2023
1
Melampo is the beloved dog of the avid hunter Silvio
in Guarini’s Il pastor fido (Act II scene 2); its name was
derived from Melampus, one of Actaeon’s hounds in
12 Book III of Ovid’s Metamorphoses.
13. Let earth and air and ocean
Let earth and air and ocean join;
In one exalted lay!
And, like the subject, be divine,
The honours all shall pay.
14. Nature first played well her part
Nature first played well her part,
In this rural healthful place,
Then did follow envious art;
Drest in pomp, with ev’ry grace.
Doubtful stares the strangers eye!
Looks at nature! Looks at art!
Both in bright perfection vye
to decide would be in vain:
Each deserves o’er BATH to reign.
16. Fairest isle
Fairest isle of isles excelling, seat of pleasures and of loves,
Venus here will choose her dwelling, and forsake her Cyprian groves.
Cupid, from his fav’rite nation, care and envy will remove;
Jealousy, that poisons passion and despair that dies for love.
Gentle murmurs, sweet complaining, sighs that blow the fire of love,
Soft repulses, kind disdaining, shall be all the pains you prove.
Every swain shall pay his duty, grateful every nymph shall prove;
And as these excel in beauty, those shall be renown’d for love.
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PETER WHELAN director
Olivier Award-winner Peter Whelan is among the most dynamic and versatile
exponents of historical performance of his generation, with a remarkable career as a
conductor and director. He is Artistic Director of the Irish Baroque Orchestra as well
as Curator for Early Music of Norwegian Wind Ensemble. Whelan is an acclaimed solo
artist with an extensive and award-winning discography as a solo bassoonist.
As conductor, Whelan has a particular passion for exploring and championing
neglected music from the Baroque and Classical eras. Engagements have included
appearances with The English Concert, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Beethoven
Orchester Bonn, Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, Portland Baroque Orchestra,
Lahti Symphony Orchestra, Oulu Symphony Orchestra and Orchestre de Chambre
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du Luxembourg.
The 2022–23 season saw Whelan conducting Vivaldi’s seldom performed
Bajazet with Irish National Opera. This production was met with outstanding
reviews and Peter Whelan and the Irish Baroque Orchestra won an Olivier Award
for ‘Outstanding Achievement in Opera’. He made his debut at San Francisco Opera,
conducting Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice. Other opera productions have included The
Marriage of Figaro, Magic Flute and Acis and Galatea with Irish National Opera and
Handel’s Radamisto with English Touring Opera.
Orchestral highlights include the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Royal
Northern Sinfonia, Dunedin Consort, la festa musicale, Meininger Hofkapelle and
Kristiansand Symphony Orchestra. Whelan has returned to Irish National Opera to
conduct a production of Vivaldi’s rarely performed L’Olimpiade in May 2024.
IRISH BAROQUE ORCHESTRA
The Olivier Award-winning Irish Baroque Orchestra is celebrated as Ireland’s
flagship period instrument orchestra and delivers world-class historically-informed
performances across Ireland and abroad. Under the artistic direction of Peter
Whelan, scholarship and musical excellence converge in a unique way through
the IBO’s work, creating an original offering like no other organization on the Irish
classical music scene. Through this integration of research and practice the very idea
of an orchestra is defined afresh, providing an unusual and enriching experience for
today’s audiences.
As an ambassador for the stories of Ireland’s musical past, the IBO uses its
unique perspective to develop the growing store of knowledge surrounding the very
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early days of Baroque and Classical music in Ireland. The IBO’s research, recordings
and performances offer audiences across Ireland a new opportunity to reevaluate
and reclaim their cultural heritage, while also engaging the Irish diaspora through
the increasing global reach of this work. Even Handel’s Messiah – an annual touring
highlight in the IBO calendar – is a rekindled link to Dublin’s cultural life in 1742.
The IBO is generously funded by the Arts Council / An Chomhairle Ealaíon.
It also receives financial support from Culture Ireland to support an expanding
international profile. The orchestra has its own collection of period instruments,
purchased with the assistance of an Arts Council capital grant and the Department
of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. The IBO is resident at the National Concert Hall,
Dublin and as of 2021 is an ensemble and Board member of the Réseau Européen de
Musique Ancienne (European Early Music Network).
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RACHEL REDMOND soprano
Rachel Redmond trained at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and the
Guildhall School of Music & Drama and began her career in William Christie’s Jardin
des Voix. With Les Arts Florissants she has regularly sung Couperin’s Leçons de
ténèbres, Handel L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, and many works by Bach,
Charpentier, Monteverdi, Mondonville, Purcell and Rameau.
Redmond made her stage debut at the Opéra Comique in Lully’s Atys, followed
by Les fêtes vénitiennes in Paris, Toulouse and New York, Second Woman in Dido
and Aeneas at Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, Lœna in La belle Hélène at the Théâtre du
Châtelet and Fortuna in L’incoronazione di Poppea at Opéra national du Rhin. For
her debut as Susanna in The Marriage of Figaro with English Touring Opera she was
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nominated for The Times Breakthrough Award.
Redmond has performed regularly at the Internationale Händel-Festspiele
Göttingen and the London Handel Festival. At Salzburg Festival she sang Messiah
under Jordi Savall, and Indian Queen and Mozart’s Mass in C minor under Teodor
Currentzis. Other highlights have included Reinhard Keiser’s Brockes Passion and Carl
Heinrich Graun’s Der Tod Jesu with Netherlands Bach Society, Handel’s Dixit Dominus
with Il Gardellino and Flemish Radio Choir, Handel’s Esther with Le Stagioni, Bach’s
Mass in B minor with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Purcell’s Welcome
to all the pleasures and Handel’s Chandos Anthem No. 6 with Freiburg Baroque
Orchestra, Bach’s Christmas Oratorio with Dunedin Consort and with the Gulbenkian
Orchestra and Fauré’s Requiem with Polyphony. Redmond made her debut with the
prestigious Canadian ensemble Tafelmusik in performances of Messiah and with
Irish National Opera singing Aminta in Vivaldi’s L’Olimpiade.
IRISH BAROQUE ORCHESTRA
VIOLIN 1 Michael Gurevich, Alice Earll, Marja Gaynor, Sophia Prodanova
VIOLIN 2 Huw Daniel, Anita Vedres, Rachael Masterson
VIOLA Pablo de Pedro Cano, Martha Campbell
CELLO Jonathan Byers, Carina Drury
DOUBLE BASS Malachy Robinson
HORN Anneke Scott, Joseph Walters
OBOE Clara Espinosa, Lucile Tessier
LUTE Sergio Bucheli
TRUMPET Darren Cornish Moore
TIMPANI Richard O’Donnell
ORGAN Malcolm Proud
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ARTISTIC DIRECTOR Peter Whelan
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Aliye Cornish Moore
ORCHESTRA MANAGER Doireann Kelly
DEVELOPMENT OFFICER Alison Byrne
KEYBOARD TECHNICIAN Marc Venturier
PATRON The President of Ireland/Uachtarán na hÉireann
Michael D. Higgins
The Irish Baroque Orchestra receives principal funding from Arts Council Ireland / An Chomhairle
Ealaíon. It is a resident company of the National Concert Hall, Dublin and is a registered charity RCN:
20071233. The Friends and Patrons of the Irish Baroque Orchestra provide loyal support, and we are
grateful to them for all that they do.
We are especially grateful to our Rachel Baptist Champions for supporting us in
bringing the Rachel Baptist story and music to life in 2024: Rhoda Draper,
Carol Reynolds, Simon Boyle, Val Keegan, Paddy Morton, Siobhan O’Beirne,
Geoffrey Keating, Peter Roycroft, Garret Cahill, Jürgen Uhlich, Elizabeth Hilliard,
Annick Smith, Tony Baines, Isobel Bailey, Garret Dalton, Sean Tester, Cathy Brown,
Garry Hynes, Kenneth Langan and several donors who wish to remain anonymous.
We would like to acknowledge the work of Brian Clark in preparing the performing
edition for the Overture to The Grand Festino and David Byers for allowing use of
Let earth and air and ocean.
Recorded in St Peter’s Church of Ireland, Drogheda, Ireland,
on 1–3 February 2023
Recording Producer & Engineer
Philip Hobbs
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Post-production
Julia Thomas
Label Manager
Timothée van der Stegen
Design
Valérie Lagarde
Cover Image
‘Portrait of a Young Woman’ by Jean-Etienne Liotard (1702–1789)
© Saint Louis Art Museum / Bridgeman Images
Inside Images
© Pawel Bebenca
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