Fretwork

Stile Antico, Fretwork – Tune thy Musicke to thy Hart: Tudor & Jacobean music for private devotion (2012) [Official Digital Download 24bit/88,2kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · October 3, 2023 · Comments off

Stile Antico, Fretwork – Tune thy Musicke to thy Hart: Tudor & Jacobean music for private devotion (2012)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:04:43 minutes | 1,13 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © harmonia mundi

For its latest recording on Harmonia Mundi, Stile Antico is joined by the outstanding viol consort Fretwork to explore the wealth of sacred music written not for church performance, but for the court and for the home. Sung entirely in English, this fascinating programme spans two centuries and a vast range of styles, from the austerity of Browne and Taverner to the harmonic daring of Tomkins and Ramsey, and from the smallest works by Campion and Dowland to the great verse anthems of Gibbons and Amner.

‘We are enjoined by this fine recital to bring nuance to distinctions between sacred and secular, and what we sometimes sloppily assume to be public and private modes of musical expression in 16th-century England. The very concept of ‘private musical devotion’ we might melodramatically associate with priest-holes, and Byrd’s Mass for Four Voices in a wardrobe. Some wardrobe it would have to be to accommodate the 12 exultant voices of Tomkins’s O praise the Lord, which is one instance of several on the album where the conceit is stretched thin: just because the piece survives in a private (as opposed to ecclesiastical) collection doesn’t mean that is its natural home. What’s more important is that Stile Antico’s sleek tuning and supple attention to words, and the studio recording, intimate but not claustrophobic, do bring a carefully plotted span (over 120 years) of sacred styles into our listening rooms with rare success.

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Fretwork, David Skinner & Alamire – Byrd 158 (2023) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · May 7, 2023 · Comments off

Byrd’s first song collection was published in 1588. In the following year he writes that he had ‘bene encouraged thereby, to take further paines therein, and to make the pertaker thereof, because I would shew my selfe gratefull to thee for thy loue, and desirous to delight thee with varietie, whereof (in my opinion) no Science is more plentifully adorned then Musicke.’

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Magdalena Consort, Fretwork, His Majestys Sagbutts, Cornetts – In Chains of Gold: The English Pre-Restoration Verse Anthem, Vol. 1 (2017) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · March 15, 2023 · Comments off

Magdalena Consort, Fretwork, His Majestys Sagbutts, Cornetts – In Chains of Gold: The English Pre-Restoration Verse Anthem, Vol. 1 (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:06:36 minutes | 1,25 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Signum Records

Three ensembles of 17th-century music: Fretwork, His Majesty’s Sagbutts and Cornetts and the Magdalena Consort combine forces under the artistic direction of William Hunt for this first complete recording of the consort anthems of Orlando Gibbons. Let us here remind the reader that consort anthems were conceived as domestic music to be performed at the private homes of the nobility and gentry or at court; they are more often than not scored for voices and viols, with alternating instrumental and vocal moments – even if the viols, probably, were to play throughout. Consort anthems are different from verse anthems in that the latter were written for liturgical use, featuring one or more soloists, accompanied by the organ and alternating with passages for the full cathedral choir. To close the subject, the full anthem was entirely written for the chorus. Thus, the present recording shows us Gibbons as a composer for highly skilled amateurs, from the King’s own entourage down to the educated bourgeoisie. Alas, the scarcity of material that has come to us, as well as the flabbergasting diversity of manuscript or published sources, has brought the artists of this album to complete the extant consort anthems with a handful of other kinds of anthems, most likely verse anthems. But whatever the format, Gibbons appears here as a huge though somewhat neglected genius – the utter complexity of his music, his rather short life-span, as well as the fact that many a score may have been lost during the First Civil War and the bleak Cromwellian protectorate, may account for that relative neglect.

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Iestyn Davies & Fretwork – Lamento (2021) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · March 14, 2023 · Comments off

Countertenor Iestyn Davies and the viol consort Fretwork present a new recording of works for viol consort and voice, drawn from 17th Century Germany, following their critically praised 2019 album of works by Michael Nyman and Henry Purcell.

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Fretwork, Dublin Consort Singers & Mark Keane – John Amner: Complete Consort Music (2019) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · February 7, 2023 · Comments off

John Amner was born and died in Ely, Cambridge shire and worked for the greater part of his life at Ely Cathedral, as a boy chorister and later as informator choristorum. He succeeded some of England’s finest composers such as George Barcroft, John Farrant and Christopher Tye. He received his Bachelor of Music from Oxford with the support of the Earl of Bath in 1613, and also from Cambridge in 1640. Although not a ‘celebrated ‘ composer of the Renaissance era, the music in Amner’s Sacred Hymnes shows that he was capable of writing in a number of styles from three-voice conzonets through to elaborate consort anthems of multiple voices in the verse sections. Also on this fascinating album is his five part Pavan and Galliard Amner’s only surviving works for viol consort which represents an indication of a broader compositional output of instrumental music by the composer. Amner has been seldom recorded, and this meticulously and lovingly curated album represents an important addition to the understanding of both the composer and the provincial religious music scene in England in the first half of the 17th century.

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Fretwork – John Jenkins: Complete Four-Part Consort Music (2018) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · February 7, 2023 · Comments off

For a good third of a century, the Fretwork ensemble has been constantly sifting through the immensely rich repertoire for consort of violas, generally from the British sphere, from Taverner to Purcell — so, the 16th and 17th centuries — while never hesitating to commission entirely new works from modern-day composers. The combination of the viola’s “ancient” sound with modern writing brings forth the most unlikely sonic spheres… This album keeps both feet firmly in England’s 17th century with John Jenkins (1592-1678), famous in his own day, and consistently one of the most essential composers for any self-respecting viola player from the very start of his career — both in England and abroad, which is unusual in itself — thanks to his output of literally hundreds of pieces for various viola ensembles. A number of them were written for “family”-style consorts, in large part due to the ban on all forms of public music implemented by Cromwell’s religious dictatorship. Once the monarchy was restored, the fashion for groups of amateurs playing concert violas would endure long enough to bring fame and fortune to composers such as Jenkins. Here we will discover a language which is at once conservative in terms of form, and very daring, explosive even, in terms of content, rather like the work of a 17th century Haydn.

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Fretwork – Matthew Locke: The Flat Consort (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · February 4, 2023 · Comments off

Fretwork - Matthew Locke: The Flat Consort (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz] Download

Matthew Locke was born 400 years ago in 1622, and while he is often ranked as one of England’s finest composers, he is still unaccountably neglected: his music may not be as immediately appealing as his immediate successor, Henry Purcell, nor as wide- ranging as William Byrd, yet his forceful musical personality and luxuriant technique place him in the first echelon of English composers, with his works described by Richard Boothby of Fretwork as having a “quixotic, capricious restlessness that is constantly challenging the listener to follow his argument … a thrilling musical ride”. Accompanying Fretwork on continuo for this recording are David Miller (archlute and theorbo) and Silas Wollston (harpsichord).
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Fretwork – Matthew Locke: The Little Consort (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · January 11, 2023 · Comments off

The second Fretwork’s installment of works by Matthew Locke. Matthew Locke was born 400 years ago in 1622, and while he is often ranked as one of England’s finest composers, he is still unaccountably neglected: his music may not be as immediately appealing as his immediate successor, Henry Purcell, nor as wide-ranging as William Byrd, yet his forceful musical personality and luxuriant technique place him in the first echelon of English composers, with his works described by Richard Boothby of Fretwork as having a “quixotic, capricious restlessness that is constantly challenging the listener to follow his argument … a thrilling musical ride”. Accompanying Fretwork on continuo for this recording are David Miller (archlute and theorbo) and Silas Wollston (harpsichord).

The cover of the album bares an inscription in the walls by the choir stall of Exeter Cathedral, thought to have been carved by the composer during his time as a member of the choir there.

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The Sixteen & Fretwork – Byrd: Psalmes, Songs and Sonnets (1611) (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · December 30, 2022 · Comments off

The Psalmes, Songs and Sonnets von 1611 war William Byrds letzte Veröffentlichung. Und was für ein hervorragend passender Höhepunkt eines lebenslangen musikalischen Wirkens! Es ist nicht nur reich an Abwechslung und Erfindungsreichtum – es enthält sowohl geistliche als auch weltliche Musik und verwendet eine Reihe von Besetzungen, vom kleinen Trio über das Consort bis hin zum vollen Chor -, sondern ist wahrscheinlich auch die fröhlichste und heiterste Sammlung von Musik, die Byrd je geschaffen hat.

Im Vorfeld des 400. Todestages von William Byrd im Jahr 2023 werden The Sixteen und Harry Christophers für diese neue Gesamteinspielung der Psalmen, Lieder und Sonette aus dem Jahr 1611 vom gefeierten Viol Consort, Fretwork, begleitet.

The Sixteen Fretwork Harry Christophers, Leitung

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Fretwork – Thomas Lupo: Fantasia (2022) [Official Digital Download 24bit/96kHz]

Studio Masters By admin · June 16, 2022 · Comments off

FANTASIA is Fretwork’s eleventh release with Signum Classics, and explores the court music of tudor Eng- land through the works of Thomas Lupo. A very large quantity of Lupo’s private and intimate viol consort music has survived, and we can marvel at its variety and quality. He wrote for unique combinations of viols in his three-part Fantasies, however the five- and six-part fantasies are his most impressive work, seri- ous and compelling pieces showing a fabulous command of counterpoint.

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