Midtown Concerts: The Dryden Ensemble – An Eyewitness Guide to Versailles

This dramatic musical entertainment combines French Baroque music with eyewitness accounts of life at Versailles, featuring actors Roberta Maxwell and Paul Hecht reading from the letters of Élisabeth Charlotte, sister-in-law to Louis XIV and the memoirs of the Duc de Saint-Simon, a soldier, diplomat, and diarist. The program gives listeners an idea of daily life at the court.

About Midtown Concerts

https://www.gemsny.org/midtown-concerts

About Gotham Early Music Scene (GEMS)

https://gemsny.org/

About Dryden Ensemble

Named in honor of John Dryden, the English poet laureate whose words inspired Baroque composers including Purcell and Handel, the Dryden Ensemble specializes in performing music of the 17th and 18th Centuries on period instruments. A line from Dryden's Song to St. Cecilia captures the essence of Baroque music and the ensemble's philosophy: "What Passion cannot Musick raise and quell!"

Vita Wallace, violin |
Jane McKinley, oboe |
Lisa Terry, bass viol |
Webb Wiggins, harpsichord