To what extent did England adopt Italian vocal practices? In Shakespeare's Richard II, when York speaks of ‘Proud Italy / Whose manners still our tardy-apish nation / Limps after in base imitation’ he seems simply to voice an observable trend in social history. From the Elizabethan period onwards, Italianate influences are evident in many aspects of high society, from the fabrics it wore to the madrigals it sang. Yet England's cultural relationship with Italy during the seventeenth century was actually a highly ambivalent one. When we read Shakespeare's lines with a more sceptical eye we can sense an artist both embarrassed by and dismissive of this ‘base imitation’. Look at the music of Purcell and, for every Italian trait, one finds an obstinately English characteristic. Yet vocally, fashions in England seem to have been determined less by composers such as Purcell, and more by society, as reflected in the journals of amateur arbiters of taste such as the diarist John Evelyn. With the backing of a wealthy family, after graduating from Oxford Evelyn spent time in Italy. He was a typical Grand Tourist, and to read his later observations of music in fashionable London is to read the opinions of a man who can barely bring himself to commend a singer without remarking on his Italian pedigree.

Vocally, the performance practice of English Baroque can be seen as a whirlpool formed between currents – the backwater of English iconoclasm and the mainstream of Italian imitation.