I was reading Chris Pasles' lukewarm review "Chanticleer Sings Purcell" (Jan. 4) and was startled by his comment that "It's hard to imagine the lusty, bear-baiting Elizabethans listening to such bloodless music-making." The Elizabethans would indeed not have listened to Purcell's music if only because it was written much later. Elizabeth I died in 1603 and Purcell wrote in the 1680s and '90s during the Restoration period with a very different aesthetic influenced by refined French styles.
Henry Hespenheide
Los Angeles
