The Spin Doctor Europadisc's Weekly Column

Amid the present highly-charged social and political times, one could be forgiven for being perpetually exercised by the daily deluge of alarming news. Whether or not one has an interest in current affairs, no area of life seems to be untouched, from the cost of living to the arts (most recently, both Washington DC’s Kennedy Center and the likely closure of Cardiff University’s excellent Department of Music have made the headlines). The church – which historically many have turned to in turbulent times – also seems to be in a state of permanent crisis. This could easily turn into a polemical rant or a rose-tinted nostalgia trip to supposedly less troubled eras. Yet there’s no turning back, and the hard-won progress of recent years on a number of fronts needs to be fiercely defended.

There is for all of us, however, sometimes a need for solace: a soothing balm to comfort the spirits. This is where I’ve found myself recently, and I’m surely not alone. For reading, I’ve turned to Kafka, whose remarkable short stories seem less crazy (and a good deal more pertinent!) than they might have just a few years ago. Where music is concerned, chamber works seem to offer an ever safer haven: Haydn, Schubert and Brahms rarely miss the mark, but lately it’s been Henry Purcell’s miraculous Fantazias for viol consort that have provided most relief.

Less celebrated than Dido’s ubiquitous Lament from Dido and Aeneas, less widely performed than Purcell’s choral music, the Fantazias are nevertheless among the greatest masterpieces, not just within their composer’s output but of the entire Baroque era. Once thought to have been composed for instruments of the violin family, more recent study has confirmed that they were written for viols, of the sort that were already outdated by the time these works were penned. There are three Fantazias for three-part consort, nine for four parts (composed in the summer of 1680), a single five-part ‘Fantazia upon One Note’, and two ‘In Nomines‘’ (one in six, the other in seven part). The latter two works revived the archaic genre of works based on a cantus firmus from the Benedictus of John Taverner’s early-16th-century Missa ‘Gloria tibi Trinitas’.

It would have been difficult for Purcell to gather forces for performing these viol pieces even within his immediate circle. One theory that has found favour is that he wrote them primarily as composition exercises, and in the main manuscript source (British Library Add. MS 30930) they progress steadily in scale from the three-part works to the seven-part In Nomine. There are additional suggestions that further works were planned, progressing up to eight parts. If they were written as exercises, they certainly show Purcell’s awareness and absorption of earlier models: Orlando Gibbons in the three-part works, Matthew Locke and John Jenkins in the four-part Fantazias, and Tudor forebears in the In Nomines. But the particular thoroughness with which Purcell explores contrapuntal possibilities, as well as the often dazzling harmonic progressions and clashes, are entirely his own, and (for this listener) a perpetual source of delight and wonder.

Even if they originated as ‘mere’ composition exercises, the Fantazias are eminently performable, and have become cornerstones of the modern viol consort repertoire. There have been several successful recordings over the years, among which some of my own favourites (Phantasm on the Simax label, and two from Fretwork on Virgin Classics and Harmonia Mundi) are currently out of the catalogue. Still, among currently available discs there are such fine ones as Jordi Savall’s Hesperion XX consort on Alia Vox, and the Chelys Consort of Viols (who add a few other works, including the famous Chacony in G minor, into the mix) on BIS. There’s a particular satisfaction to listening to the Fantazias in order as they grow in dimensions, but however you choose to listen – whether dipping in or all in one go, closely following the many musical intricacies or as a soothing balm – these are works that will afford a lifetime of pleasure.

If you don’t already know Purcell’s Fantazias, do give them a try. They offer a mixture of technical mastery, exquisite textural balance, harmonic surprises and vivid inventiveness that may prove a welcome refuge from the craziness of the world around!

The Recordings:
Purcell - Fantasias for the Viols (Hesperion XX) AVSA9859
Purcell - Fantazias (Chelys Consort of Viols) BIS2583