Alfonso FERRABOSCO (The Younger)
Lessons for Solo Lyra Viol
The third tuning [22:51]
The second tuning [11:13]
The first tuning [16:21]
The third tuning [5:27]
The second tuning [11:43]
Paolo Biordi (bass viol)
rec. 2018, Chiesa di San Biagio, Gerfalco, Grossetto, Italy
World premiere recordings.
DYNAMIC CDS7852 [67:54]
Three generations of one family of Italian musicians – the Ferraboscos – played significant roles in the musical and cultural life of England from the reign of Elizabeth until the first two decades of the Restoration.
The Ferrabosco line which made its mark in England can be traced back to Domenico Maria Ferrabosco (1513-1574), a Bolognese singer and composer who, after making his reputation in the city of his birth, where he became maestro di cappella at San Petronio, made his way to Rome; by 1546 he was magister puerorum at the Cappella Giulia in Rome and a member of the papal choir from 1551 to 1555. He published several sets of madrigals. It was his son Alfonso (1543-1588) who was the first member of the family to make his way to England. In 1559 he was working in the service of Charles of Guise (Cardinal of Lorraine) and in 1562 is recorded as a groom or gentleman of the privy chamber at the court of Elizabeth I. He seems to have been a lutenist and a singer. Soon after 1562 he is known to have been in Rome, in the service of Cardinal Farnese. His desire to return to England was opposed by the Cardinal and he had to make his way back secretly. In 1567 he was granted a life annuity by Elizabeth, who allowed him to travel both to Paris and Italy (it is possible that he was expected to spy on English Catholics for Elizabeth). He was back in London to collect his annuity in 1571. Soon however, after making a further journey on the continent, he seems to have lost the queen’s favour – he was alleged by some to have robbed and killed a servant of Sir Philip Sidney; Elizabeth may also have been uneasy about reports that he had openly attended Mass while in Paris. Given this loss of Royal favour he decided to leave England, doing so along with his wife Susanna Symons in June 1578 (the two had married only a month earlier). Susanna was presumably the mother of Ferrabosco’s son Alfonso the Younger, born around 1575. When Alfonso and Susanna left England their son – and a sister whose name seems to be unknown – were left to the care of Gommar van Oosterwijck, a Flemish flautist at Elizabeth’s court.
Alfonso the Younger was, by 1592, in receipt of a royal annuity as “musitian for the violles”. In 1601 he was granted a higher annual payment. A lutenist, viol player and singer he was given appointments by both Elizabeth and her successor, James I. In 1604 he was appointed as tutor in music, especially the viol to Prince Henry, the generally accomplished and widely-admired (he was an intelligent patron of the arts) eldest son of James I. When, amidst much mourning, Henry died of typhoid, aged 18, in 1612, Ferrabosco taught the generally less impressive Prince Charles, the future Charles I. As a composer, Ferrabosco worked with the poet Ben Jonson and the architect-designer Inigo Jones in producing a series of lavish masques at the Court. For the public theatre he composed the songs in Jonson’s great satirical play Volpone, first presented at the Globe in 1606. When the masque Hymenaei was published, also in 1606, Jonson’s preface praised Ferrabosco as a master of “all the spirits of Musique”. In 1609 Ferrabosco published a collection of Ayres, settings of 28 poems by Jonson, John Donne, Thomas Campion and a number of lesser English poets. Later that year saw the publication of his volume Lessons for 1., 2. and 3. Viols, from which come the pieces played on the disc under review. Both of these publications contained commendatory poems by Ben Jonson. It is worth noting that the volume of Lessons carried a dedication to Henry Wriothesley, Third Earl of Southampton, perhaps best known as Shakespeare’s patron. Ferrabosco’s other compositions included 15 Latin motets and some English anthems, as well as some impressive (and influential) fantasias and In nomines for viol consort. Ferrabosco the Younger, and his wife were the parents of three sons, Alfonso (d.1652) Henry (d.1658?) and John (1626-1682). Of these, Alfonso was from the 1620s a court musician “for the viols and wind instruments”; Henry was also a player of wind instruments at court; John also served as a court musician in the 1640s and, after the Restoration was, in 1662, appointed organist and master of the choristers at Ely Cathedral. He composed sacred music and works for organ and harpsichord.
Our more immediate concern here is with the middle of the three Alfonsos – Alfonso the Younger, or Alfonso Ferrabosco II as at least one Italian reference book identifies him. On this new disc the well-known Italian violist Paolo Biordi gives us a selection of the pieces for a single viol from Ferrabosco’s 1609 volume of Lessons. The purpose of this music was as much pedagogical, as the providing of pleasure for listeners. Since Ferrabosco had in mind the use of the lyra viol, the music is presented in tablature form. The lyra viol was a smaller form of the bass viol – it was also smaller than the division viol – which was especially popular in England in the seventeenth century. Ferrabosco seems to have been the first composer to produce a work wholly devoted to the lyra viol. In Ferrabosco’s collection the music is presented in section ns devoted to a series of different tunings. The disc’s booklet note, by musicologist Danilo Prefumo, explains the three tunings represented on this disc “the first tuning: fefhf; the second tuning: ffhfh; the third tuning: fhfhf; where the letters indicate the intervals between the lyra viol’s six strings.” Ferrabosco does not choose to arrange his many dance movements in suites – perhaps Paolo Biordi might have created suites of his own, so as to make his recital more readily palatable for listeners? As it is, though there is some fine music, well-played, to be heard on this disc, listening to too much of it at one go can seem too much like listening to Czerny’s Études (Kunst der Fingerfertigkeit), Op.740 or his Pianoforte-Schule, Op. 500 at length.
Biordi doesn’t actually play the lyra viol. The two instruments he uses are listed thus: “6-string Bass Viol, Paolo Biordi, Florence, 2003, after Henry Jayes, 1624 (for the first tuning)” and “6-string Bass Viol, Jacob Henry Goldt, Hamburg, 1768 (for the second and third tuning)”.
Biordi’s tone is impeccable throughout, and he articulates the rhythms of Ferrabosco’s various dances – ‘Pavins’, Corantos, Almaines and Galliards – very attractively. Individual pieces deserving of particular recommendation include the affecting Almaine 2 in the third tuning (track 3); the delightful Coranto 17 also in the third tuning (track 6) which is played pizzicato throughout; Pavin 14 in the second tuning (track 9), which is both grave and graceful and which, being longer than most of these pieces, is more fully developed; the paired Galliard 11 and Coranto 11 in the second tuning (tracks 23 and 24 which close the album). In fact, the more I have listened to this disc (while bearing in mind my own advice not to listen to too much of it at one sitting) the more rewarding I have found it.
This is, clearly, a disc for those with a particular interest in the great English tradition of the viol. It is, though, unlikely to please a wider audience; I might, indeed, say of it – with the tenses of the verbs adapted – what Hamlet said of a certain old play in Act II, Scene ii – “the play, I remember, pleased not the million, ’twas caviar to the general. But it was – as I received it […] an excellent play”. This is a specialized CD, but it is an excellent one. It makes a fine complementary companion to the CD by the Hathor Consort, Alfonso Ferrabosco: The Art of the Fantasy (Ramée, RAM 1806), which includes some of the pieces for 2 and 3 viols from Ferrabosco’s 1609 Lessons, along with some of his other music for viol consort.
Glyn Pursglove
