Magdalena Consort

Magdalena Consort, Fretwork, His Majestys Sagbutts, Cornetts – In Chains of Gold: The English Pre-Restoration Verse Anthem, Vol. 1 (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:06:36 minutes | 1,25 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Signum Records

Three ensembles of 17th-century music: Fretwork, His Majesty’s Sagbutts and Cornetts and the Magdalena Consort combine forces under the artistic direction of William Hunt for this first complete recording of the consort anthems of Orlando Gibbons. Let us here remind the reader that consort anthems were conceived as domestic music to be performed at the private homes of the nobility and gentry or at court; they are more often than not scored for voices and viols, with alternating instrumental and vocal moments – even if the viols, probably, were to play throughout. Consort anthems are different from verse anthems in that the latter were written for liturgical use, featuring one or more soloists, accompanied by the organ and alternating with passages for the full cathedral choir. To close the subject, the full anthem was entirely written for the chorus. Thus, the present recording shows us Gibbons as a composer for highly skilled amateurs, from the King’s own entourage down to the educated bourgeoisie. Alas, the scarcity of material that has come to us, as well as the flabbergasting diversity of manuscript or published sources, has brought the artists of this album to complete the extant consort anthems with a handful of other kinds of anthems, most likely verse anthems. But whatever the format, Gibbons appears here as a huge though somewhat neglected genius – the utter complexity of his music, his rather short life-span, as well as the fact that many a score may have been lost during the First Civil War and the bleak Cromwellian protectorate, may account for that relative neglect.

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