# Music for Viols and Consort Music



## hocket

This is area I've long thought could do with a thread here and is in need of a bit of love. I guess now's as good a time as any. I've made the title general so that it can encompass the full range of music for viols whether it be English consort music (or broken consort), the great French tradition of Saint-Colombe and Marais, or late work such as Carl Friedrich Abel. I guess other types of consort music (recorders, lutes, cornets etc) could make a home here if necessary as they have some relation and aren't exactly thick on the ground where threads are concerned.

Anyway, I thought it'd be good to have a corner where we can discuss the composers, recommend recordings and post samples etc.

Going way back to the early days of viol music here's some Diego Ortiz played by legendary violist Jordi Savall:






here he is again playing something by Captain Tobias Hume:






This is Phantasm playing John Jenkins, a musician whose reputation once stood so high that Purcell was dubbed 'the Jenkins of his age':






More later.


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## Lunasong

TIL what a _chest of viols_ is:

from Wiki:
*Chest of viols* is a term which was used primarily in the 16th and 17th centuries in England for either a consort of viols, or the specialized cabinet made to contain a small consort of viols, usually containing two treble, two tenor, and two bass viols, or alternately two treble, three tenor, and one bass viol.
When the term refers to instruments, they are generally similar in make, tone, power, relative size, wood type, and color. In terms of size, the bass viol's string length should be exactly twice that of the treble viol's. The similarity required of the viols in a chest of viols usually meant that they were made by the same maker, and sometimes were ordered in sets. Similar viols were desirable because they would blend better, and also stay in tune with each other better than more disparate instruments.
One enclosure is described by Thomas Tudway in Hawkins's _General History_ as "a large hutch, with several apartments and partitions in it; each partition was lined with green bays, to keep the instruments from being injured by the weather." These cases were sometimes expanded to house an expanding collection of instruments. As mentioned in the above quote, the purpose of the chest was not only to house the instruments, but also to protect them from changes in temperature and humidity, which can damage instruments.
Many wealthy English families owned a chest of viols, which speaks to the popularity of consort music for viol in home music-making, as a private entertainment. In 1617 Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork bought a chest of viols for £8 sterling. £8 sterling in 1600 would be worth about US $1550 in 2010. A similar grouping can be found in chests of lutes.


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## Ukko

Excellent initiative, _@hocket_. Thanks.


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## hocket

I meant to post a lot more yesterday to get us started but I had some problems with my Flash Player and had to retire injured.

William Lawes, personal friend of Charles I and his favourite composer, slain during the Civil War:






The mysterious Sieur de Saint-Colombe, about whom the film Touts les Matins du Monde was made:






His famed pupil Marin Marais, the famed Sonnerie de Saint Genevieve in which the viol and the violin battle it out, in this instance Jordi Savall vs Fabio Biondi.






and this is Sophie Watillon playing Marais before her untimely death.






Henry Purcell, the last of the English viol composers:


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## hocket

Marin Marais's style, like William Byrd's, was described as 'angelic' but in his case it was contrasted with the 'devilish' style of his great rival Antoine Forqueray:






Christopher Simpson was a noted violist whose writings are still used to learn the techniques of playing the viol:






Telemann, played by Hille Perl:






Here's Paolo Pandolfo on Carl Friedrich Abel:






That should do for now. Perhaps I'll look at individual composers in the future. Does anyone have any favourites, or people they're particularly interested in?


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## hocket

> TIL what a chest of viols is:


...and here's the contents, performed by Fretwork, very different to the ensembles found in the later repertoires of Marais and the like:


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## Arsakes

I think I may have heard some Viol works in video games such as 'Civilization: Colonization' and 'Europa Universalis' ... that strange violin like sound.

Can you introduce me some _composers_ who wrote chamber music for Viol?


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## hocket

Arsakes said:


> Can you introduce me some _composers_ who wrote chamber music for Viol?


Hi, sorry I'm a little confused by the question. Apart from the last link above (in which the music was composed by William Lawes) I believe I've mentioned the composer of each piece of music I've posted, and barring the solo pieces by Tobias Hume and the CF Abel it'd all qualify as chamber music. Maybe I'm being a bit slow; are you kidding around?

Perhaps you're thinking of string quartets to which English consort music is closely related and is a forerunner of? The earliest significant body of surviving work of this is by Christopher Tye, a contemporary Tallis (by whom a handful of pieces survive too).

The music here is written by Tye and performed by the Rose Consort of Viols:






A notable feature of consort music is that, whilst viols are normally viewed as the default instrument as they were the most popular, the music was also expected to be played on other instruments. In this example it is played by a consort of flutes (the flutes of the era are nowadays called recorders):






Another related form was the Consort Song, and this example is by William Byrd one of the most famous Elizabethan composers:






He also wrote instrumental music:






Orlando Gibbons is another great composer of this era:


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## Ukko

I just ordered Pandolfo's C.F. Abel CD (from CD Connection). _@Hocket_, thanks much for the link to his interview.

[Note to _@Kh_: Is it possible you will make this thread sticky? It seems both specialized and valuable; 'twould be a shame for it to disappear into the depths of the database.]


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## clavichorder

Beautiful fantasia with Gibbons, very well formed and some delightful dissonance:


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## clavichorder

Also, not many people seem to realize that Purcell was a master of this form. And some of his top Lawes in dissonance.


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## Ukko

clavichorder said:


> Also, not many people seem to realize that Purcell was a master of this form. And some of his top Lawes in dissonance.
> [...]


Purcell was playing with anachronism, much like Prokofiev did in his 1st symphony. So... this 'topping' thing should be taken with appropriate seasonings.


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## Ukko

Anyone want to guess whether this moribund thread would be better populated if it were sticky? _Kh_?


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## clavichorder

Ukko said:


> Purcell was playing with anachronism, much like Prokofiev did in his 1st symphony. So... this 'topping' thing should be taken with appropriate seasonings.


Good point. I hadn't thought of it that way.


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## violadude

I really like this trio sonata by Henry Purcell. It is written as a powerful chaccone.


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## Mandryka

Has anyone enjoyed the new recording of Forqueray (Père) by Sakai and Rousset? It's on spotify, came out this month, and I think it's wonderful, revealing. Never before has the music been played with so much feeling and so little devilry. 

Sometimes I think that this is the start of a new wave in French baroque, which may have been done a disservice by an overly classical style. It's as if we think of Versailles as the court of Mollière, and forget that it was equally the court of Racine. Not only this CD, but also Cuiller's Rameau and Karen Flint's Lebègue, seem to be finding new dimensions of poetry, tragedy and lyricism.


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## Mandryka

I've spent quite a bit of time exploring English music, with great pleasure, especially contrapuntal music for Lyra viol. And French music too - there are some nice French things for viol I think, especially solo music like Dubuisson and De Machy. 

But what about Italian? And Spanish?

And then there's German. is there any German music for viols which shows the sort of contrapuntal complexity of the last three cello suites? Or was Bach taking the Brits and the Dutch (Stoeffken) as his model? (Or what?)


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## Heliogabo

Mandryka said:


> And then there's German. is there any German music for viols which shows the sort of contrapuntal complexity of the last three cello suites? Or was Bach taking the Brits and the Dutch (Stoeffken) as his model? (Or what?)


Well, there is nice Art of fugue for viols out there


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