This isn’t the first time that this ensemble has recorded the
music of John Jenkins. Their 2011 disc devoted to his consort music
in four parts was released on MF8011, and now they return to him,
this strange-sounding band whose name sounds like a Victorian illusionist
or a tribute act. The ensemble is five strong and flexible, and two
of the players double, thus they play two treble viols, two tenor,
and two bass, in varying combinations, with organ. They sound supremely
attuned to Jenkins’s aesthetic, which is predicated on flowing
expressive lines and an elegance of counterpoint. It's quite
unlike the music of his more abrasive and avant-garde near-contemporary
William Lawes.
Half the programme consists of a well-programmed sequence of Fantasias
whilst there are also three Airs and three Pavans, and a single Galliard.
Two things are especially noticeable about the performances. Firstly,
the tempi are entirely natural-sounding, flowing but never rushed,
and ensuring that articulation is precise but never fussy. Second,
one notices the rich consort sound which is, to a large extent, due
to the timbre of their instruments, made by Gesina Liedmeier. They
and the bows are based on appropriately seventeenth-century models.
I should also add that the excellence of the instrumentalists is,
obviously, a significant factor too. Jenkins’s Fantasias are
gracious and refined, but also show elements of prevailing melancholy
– such as in Fantasia XXVI – and a judicious employment
of counterpoint. The settings in which the organ is employed –
and there are six altogether in a recital of fourteen pieces –
are the most interior. The Pavan XXVII is a particularly good example
of Jenkins’s discreetly plangent expression, never as doleful
as Dowland, never as experimental as Lawes, but charting his own balanced
course. Programmatically it makes sense to follow it with the more
ebullient side of his musical character, richly reflected in the Fantasia
XV, in C.
You can gauge how sympathetic you will be to the sound-world produced
by The Spirit of Gambo in a piece such as Pavan IX, where the expressive
lower two bass viol voices are contrasted with the more limpid treble
viol. This lends distinction throughout, not least to the noble gravity
and timeless quality enshrined in the Pavan in D, one of the most
magnificent of the settings in this programme.
These first-class performances have been sensitively recorded in the
Doopsgezinde Kerk, Haarlem, a frequent venue for early music. In every
way this ensemble, with its odd name, is turning out outstandingly
good discs.
Jonathan Woolf
Track listing
Fantasia VI [3:16]
Fantasia XXVI [3:25]
Fantasia X [5:08]
Air XIII [3:13]
Pavan XXVII [7:09]
Fantasia XV [2:50]
Air I [4:08]
Pavan IX [6:22]
Galliard XXIV [2:20]
Pavan I [5:53]
Fantasia XXX1 [3:56]
Air II [3:59]
Fantasia XV11 [3:55]
