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Alix Goolden Performance Hall
November 10, 2006
Although today we tend to think of music for viols as purely instrumental, the practice of using a consort of viols as accompaniment to vocal music appears to have been a fairly common one during sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century England. Title pages often bore directions such as "Apt for Viols and Voyces" or "to be played on Musicall Instruments". (I wonder, were there then some works which were played on "unmusicall" ones?)
The English consort song flourished at this time and its influence led to the use of viol consorts in sacred vocal music: notably the "verse anthems" of Orlando Gibbons and his contemporaries.
Friday's superb EMSI concert featured music for viol consort, music for choir and music for both.
The "verse anthem" alternates solo singing with the full choir, and if I (and others to whom I spoke) had one minor gripe - and best to get this out of the way quickly - it was that the solo voices tended not to be quite loud enough in comparison with the accompaniment. Happily, the texts were provided with the programme, otherwise this could have proved quite frustrating.
Otherwise the singing was splendid: clear diction, very good intonation and generally excellent balances between the parts.
And what can one say about Fretwork that has not already been said? At one time, while at university, I contemplated taking up the viola da gamba; practicalities intervened and nothing came of it, but listening to the supreme and apparently effortless virtuosity of Fretwork makes me regret the missed opportunity. (Until sober realisation reminds me that the opportunity was probably that of unleashing another indifferent musician on the world).
Of the vocal-and-instrumental items, I particularly enjoyed Thomas Tomkins' "Rejoice, rejoice and singe", which had a multiplicity of solo parts and whose music - and performance - fitted its title perfectly.
Both composer Robert Ramsey and his a cappella "How are the Mighty Fall'n" were new to me, but its beauty - and that of the singing - made me want to hear more. The choir was particularly well-balanced, with a clear, bell-like top end.
Fantasias and In Nomines, the former originally a Continental, the latter a purely English form began to grow more similar during the late sixteenth century, with even the sombre In Nomine frequently breaking out into dance-like 6/8 sections.
Fretwork gave us a marvellous collection of Fantasias and In Nomines by Gibbons, which showed once again just why they have been acclaimed as the world's finest viol consort. Phrasing, touch, dynamics and ensemble were immaculate, the quicker music was full of life, the slower solemn and stately, even contemplative. Most especially, there is no hint of the academic in their playing.
I was also particularly taken by an example of what Ian Woodfield, writing in The New Grove, calls one of Tomkins' "remarkably sonorous five-part pavans".
The evening proper closed with two extracts from Gibbons' evensong service: the outgoing and wonderfully complex Magnificat and the lovely flowing Nunc Dimittis.
For an encore, Fretwork brought us forward three-and-a-half centuries with a contemporary work composed for them: Orlando Gough's Birds on Fire, a quasi-minimalist work with plenty of energy and a decidedly Middle-Eastern flavour.
A most enjoyable evening.
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