John WARD (c.1589-1638)
Consort Music for five and six viols (before 1619)
Fantasia No. 1 a6 (VdGS 1) [3:25]
Fantasia No. 3 a6 (VdGS 3) 3:34]
Fantasia No. 6 a6 (VdGS 6) [4:02]
Fantasia No. 2 a6 (VdGS 2) [2:55]
Fantasia No. 4 a6 (VdGS 4) [3:37]
Fantasia No. 5 a6 (VdGS 5) [2:38]
Fantasia No. 7 a6 (VdGS 7) [3:24]
In Nomine No. 1 a6 (VdGS 1) [3:53]
Fantasia No. 1 a5 Dolce Languir (VdGS 1) [3:01]
Fantasia No. 2 a5 La Rondinella (VdGS 2) [3:47]
Fantasia No. 3 a5 (VdGS 3) [3:31]
Fantasia No. 4 a5 (VdGS 4) [3:00]
Fantasia No. 5 a5 (VdGS 5) [3:08]
Fantasia No. 6 a5 (VdGS 6) [2:50]
Fantasia No. 7 a5 (VdGS 7) [3:33]
Fantasia No. 8 a5 (VdGS 8) [3:08]
Fantasia No. 9 a5 (VdGS 9) [3:18]
Fantasia No. 10 a5 (VdGS 10) [3:18]
Fantasia No. 11 a5 Cor Mio (VdGS 12) [3:15]
Fantasia No. 13 a5 Non fu senze (VdGS 14) [2:57]
Fantasia No. 12 a5 Leggiada sei (VdGS 13) [4:25]
In Nomine a5 (VdGS 14) [3:29]
In Nomine No. 2 a6 (VdGS 2) [3:42]
Phantasm
rec. March 2009, Wadham College Chapel, Oxford
LINN CKD339 [77:57]
This is something of a revelatory disc, given that Ward’s posthumous
reputation lies more with his madrigals - not that his status has ever been
especially exalted, on disc at least.
But these performances - outstanding in every way - do much to re-establish
him as a major composer for instrumental forces and his most favoured consort
music for four, five and six viols. Phantasm has chosen to record the music
for five and six viols.
Ward lived in London, working for Sir Henry Fanshawe, and his consort music
was certainly well enough known in his lifetime. It exists in a number of seventeenth
century editions and was subject to significant praise by a musician and writer
called Thomas Mace who spoke of its ‘great eminence and worth…fit
monuments and patterns for sober and wise posterity.’ Maybe posterity
has caught up with Mace’s estimation and with Ward’s consort music
at last.
Most of the Fantasias are tripartite, as it were, with a three section schema.
All are thoroughly well written, expressive, and accomplished. It’s best
to listen to a set of, say, three or four at a time, not because they are repetitious
but because their moods are broadly similar in effect if not in detail. Fortunately
he was something of a minor master of syncopation and this keeps things alive.
He is also superbly adept at contrastive material. The remarkably agile dance
patterns infiltrated into the writing give great strength and variety to the
music. One thinks of the Fantasia a 3 a6 [track 2] where the unhurried ease
of the outer sections is explicitly contrasted with the masque-like dance patterns
of the central panel. The fluidity of the writing, as well, is a constant feature
- the Fantasia No.4 a6 is a particularly fine example. And so too is the warmly
textured consort writing itself, so wonderfully realised by Phantasm, who play
with the utmost refinement but never inflate the Fantasias nor seek to underline
expressive points that emerge the better for their noble eloquence.
Lest one think otherwise it’s not all mellifluously aerated consort textures.
There are strong dissonances, ripe antiphonal statements, and a highly expressive
number of shifting, drifting harmonies, of which a Fantasia No. 3 a5 [track
11] is a prime example. There are also Madrigalian cadences in the more vocalised
settings such as the Fantasia No.5 a5 [track 13] and this vocalised impress
translated into instrumental form, a product of his immersion in Italian vocal
music, makes itself explicitly heard in the extrovert flourishes of the Fantasia
No.11 a5 Cor mio.
It remains only to add that the booklet is finely produced, and provocatively
engaging. The recorded sound is fittingly warm and excellent. Really this is
a first class package, and a distinguished release.
Jonathan Woolf