Alfonso FERRABOSCO I (1543-1588)
Alfonso FERRABOSCO II (c 1575-1628)
The Soule of Heaven – Pavans and Almaines
B-Five Recorder Consort
Sofie Vanden Eynde (lute)
Rec. August 2020, Eglise Assomption de la Vierge, Basse-Bodeux, Belgium
COVIELLO CLASSICS COV92108 [63:16]
I think this could be classed as a kind of concept album. It includes a thick booklet, its contents presented in German, English and Dutch. It includes a track-listing, a chronology detailing the main events in the lives of the Ferrabosco padre e figlio, brief biographies of the performers of the disc and of Annemarie Peeters, who has contributed an elaborate and deceptively clever short story whose brief chapters are headed by titles of some of the pieces. There are no notes on the music itself, on the precise instrumentaria involved in each of the arrangements, or descriptions of pavan, almaine or In nomine forms. This information is in any case of course available on many online sites.
For those readers unfamiliar with the Ferrabosco legend, Alfonso the elder was born in Bologna and arrived in England for the first time at the age of 19, at which point he joined the court of Elizabeth I as a musician. He is credited with the importation of the madrigal to these shores. He subsequently made intermittent returns to Italy which has led to some speculation that he was actually a spy working on behalf of the English. During one of these absences, he was accused of both robbery and murder in his adopted homeland; whilst he subsequently cleared his name in this regard, he also cleared off back to Italy in 1578 never to return, despite the Queen’s evident wish that he would. Approximately three years before this his illegitimate son Alfonso the younger was born in Greenwich. The boy was assigned to the guardianship of a member of the Queen’s court, and although his father asked for the child to be reunited with him in Italy, his pleas went unheeded by the Queen and the boy would neither see his father again, nor indeed visit Italy. Instead, on his release from the guardianship in 1592 he followed in his father’s footsteps at the Queen’s court where he would enjoy a long and fruitful career, notwithstanding his frequent financial anxieties.
Family stories like this are obviously rich in subtext and implication, all-too-short lives pricked by fleeting successes and disappointments, tossed about by the whimsies of fashion, marked for eternity by greater or lesser real or imagined duplicities, enriched or distorted by the anguish of guilt or the melancholy of unfulfilled longings. The Ferraboscos, The Forquerays, The Couperins……one imagines these sagas would work brilliantly as TV mini-series. The tale of the Ferraboscos certainly appealed to Annemarie Peeters whose subtle little story incorporates some of its details in a parallel narrative involving present-day characters. Without giving too much away, its final paragraph alludes to the music on this disc, the penny dropping as to its slow-burning power for her lead character, at least.
For a critic as unversed as this correspondant is with the technical demands and artistic merits of 16th century viol repertoire adapted for recorder consort, this kind of ‘concept’ seems both creative and illuminating, Playing the disc for the first time without reading the booklet, I was impressed by the precision, the wealth of colour, the projection of mood (frequently melancholy) conveyed by the five members of the B-Five Recorder Consort and the lutenist Sofie Vanden Eyde, who additionally performs several solo instrumental items with captivating grace and restraint. Despite the ensuing timbral and stylistic variety among the 23 tracks, I found this initial listen began to pall after about half an hour; individual pieces began to lose their distinctiveness and so I decided to pull the plug and leave the disc for a while.
A week later, having familiarised myself with the arc of the Ferraboscos’ lives in general (to the extent that this is even vaguely possible at a remove of some 450 years) and Peeters’ story in particular, I tried again. This time, I certainly felt more attuned to the music, and more prepared to encounter each piece as a single entity. The brief Almaines composed by Ferrabosco the Younger involve recorders and lute; they are tastefully inflected and coloured little dances which are unlikely to linger long in one’s memory, pleasant though they are. There is a single exception to this rule; track 13 is a half-minute Allmane for solo lute by his father. It transpires that most of Ferrabosco the Elder’s contributions to the disc are gravely beautiful lute solos which did create a deeper impression. Among these the two Pavans (Nos 9b in C and No 6 in F) both cast an especially deep spell, oscillating as they do between regret and nostalgia. The seven examples of the form by his son which are included tap a similar well of melancholy; these are all presented in arrangements for the recorders, occasionally supported by the lute. Thus No 5 (track 8) is rich in ornamentation, No 7 (Sharp Pavan – track 11) wanders off in some unusually tart harmonic directions and No 2 (On Seven Notes, which concludes the disc) is particularly haunting. Ferrabosco the Younger’s In nomine No 1 (track 9) is swifter and unsurprisingly more adventurous than the trio of his father’s equivalents here, although the latter’s In nomine No 26b (track 20) has moments of strange severity. All these little pieces have been arranged for the recorder consort alone.
Whilst the playing of the B-Five Consort seems impeccable and the airy recording is ideal, even allowing for the short story idea I must still conclude that this issue is very much one for specialists, be they recorder aficionados or those with a particular interest in those fascinating Ferraboscos. For the general listener the disc might provide an agreeable hour or so, perhaps one that’s intensified by the contents of the booklet. For my own curmudgeonly part however, I don’t in all honesty anticipate revisiting this rather niche issue any time soon.
Richard Hanlon
The B-Five Recorder Consort comprise Markus Bartholomé, Katelijne Lanneau, Thomas List,
Silja-Maaria Schütt and Mina Voet
Contents
1. * Almaine No 9 [2:04]
2. * Pavan No 3 Dovehouse [4:17]
3. + Preludium [0:41]
4. * Almaine No 3 [0:59]
5. * Pavan No 1 On Four Notes [4:20]
6. * Almaine No 4 [2:15]
7. + Pavan in C [No 9b] [4:46]
8. * Pavan No 5 [4:03]
9. * In nomine No 1 [2:26]
10. + In nomine [No 25] [1:39]
11. + Pavan in F [No 6] [3:40]
12. * Pavan No 7 Sharp Pavan [4:48]
13. + Allmane [0:38]
14. * Almaine No 2 [1:12]
15. * Pavan No 4 [3:34]
16. + Fantasia [No 4] [3:29]
17. * Pavan No 8 [2:57]
18. * Almaine No 10 [2:01]
19. + Galliard [No 11] [1:56]
20. + In nomine [No 26b] [2:30]
21. + In nomine [No 24] [1:54]
22. * Almaine No 1 [1:25]
23. * Pavan No 2 On Seven Notes [5:30]
+ AF I The Elder
* AF II The Younger
