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| Years active | since 1985 |
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| Website | fretwork |
Fretwork is a British consort of viols, established in 1985. It specialises in English music for viol consort from approximately the time of William Byrd to that of Henry Purcell, but also performs Renaissance and contemporary repertoire.
The group was formed in 1985, and received financial support from the Arts Council of Great Britain. Its first performance was in the Wigmore Hall in 1986. [1] In 1999 the group consisted of Richard Boothby, Richard Campbell, Wendy Gillespie, Julia Hodgson, William Hunt and Susanna Pell. [1] In 2023 the members were listed on the website as Emily Ashton, Emilia Benjamin, Richard Boothby, Joanna Levine, Jonathan Rees and Sam Stadlen. [2] Among those who have performed with the group are the singers Catherine Bott, James Bowman and Michael Chance, the instrumentalists Paul Nicholson and Christopher Wilson, and the Red Byrd vocal ensemble. [1]
The group has published a number of editions of music for consort of viols, and also a book by David Pinto on the consort and dance music of William Lawes. [1] [3]
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John Dowland was an English Renaissance composer, lutenist, and singer. He is best known today for his melancholy songs such as "Come, heavy sleep", "Come again", "Flow my tears", "I saw my Lady weepe", "Now o now I needs must part" and "In darkness let me dwell". His instrumental music has undergone a major revival, and with the 20th century's early music revival, has been a continuing source of repertoire for lutenists and classical guitarists.
The viol, viola da gamba, or informally gamba, is any one of a family of bowed, fretted, and stringed instruments with hollow wooden bodies and pegboxes where the tension on the strings can be increased or decreased to adjust the pitch of each of the strings. Frets on the viol are usually made of gut, tied on the fingerboard around the instrument's neck, to enable the performer to stop the strings more cleanly. Frets improve consistency of intonation and lend the stopped notes a tone that better matches the open strings. Viols first appeared in Spain in the mid-to-late 15th century, and were most popular in the Renaissance and Baroque (1600–1750) periods. Early ancestors include the Arabic rebab and the medieval European vielle, but later, more direct possible ancestors include the Venetian viole and the 15th- and 16th-century Spanish vihuela, a six-course plucked instrument tuned like a lute that looked like but was quite distinct from the four-course guitar.
In Nomine is a title given to a large number of pieces of English polyphonic, predominantly instrumental music, first composed during the 16th century.
John Jenkins (1592–1678), was an English composer who was born in Maidstone, Kent and who died at Kimberley, Norfolk.
William Lawes was an English composer and musician.
A fantasia is a musical composition with roots in improvisation. The fantasia, like the impromptu, seldom follows the textbook rules of any strict musical form.
A consort of instruments was a phrase used in England during the 16th and 17th centuries to indicate an instrumental ensemble. These could consist of the same or a variety of instruments. Consort music enjoyed considerable popularity at court and in the households of the wealthy in the Elizabethan era, and many pieces were written for consorts by the major composers of the period. In the Baroque era, consort music was absorbed into chamber music.
In religious music, the verse anthem is a type of choral music, or song, distinct from the motet or 'full' anthem.
During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603), English art and high culture reached a pinnacle known as the height of the English Renaissance. Elizabethan music experienced a shift in popularity from sacred to secular music and the rise of instrumental music. Professional musicians were employed by the Church of England, the nobility, and the rising middle-class.
Phantasm is a viol consort currently based in Germany. It was founded in 1994 by Laurence Dreyfus. It catapulted into international prominence when its debut CD won a Gramophone Award for the Best Baroque Instrumental Recording of 1997. Since then, they have released seventeen further recordings, won several awards, and in the words of their website, "have become recognised as the most exciting viol consort active on the world scene today".
Nigel North is an English lutenist, musicologist, and pedagogue.
Charles Daniels is an English tenor, particularly noted for his performances of baroque music. He is a frequent soloist with The King's Consort, and has made over 25 recordings with the ensemble on the Hyperion label.
The Rose Consort of Viols is an English ensemble of viol players who perform mainly early consort music, including works by Orlando Gibbons, John Dowland, and Henry Purcell.
Laurence Dreyfus, FBA is an American musicologist and player of the viola da gamba who was University Lecturer and Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford.
Lachrimæ or seaven teares figured in seaven passionate pavans, with divers other pavans, galliards and allemands, set forth for the lute, viols, or violons, in five parts is a collection of instrumental music composed by John Dowland. It was published by John Windet in 1604. It consists of a set of seven slow pieces which the composer calls tears plus other pieces including some livelier numbers.
Early music of Britain and Ireland, from the earliest recorded times until the beginnings of the Baroque in the 17th century, was a diverse and rich culture, including sacred and secular music and ranging from the popular to the elite. Each of the major nations of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales retained unique forms of music and of instrumentation, but British music was highly influenced by continental developments, while British composers made an important contribution to many of the major movements in early music in Europe, including the polyphony of the Ars Nova and laid some of the foundations of later national and international classical music. Musicians from the British Isles also developed some distinctive forms of music, including Celtic chant, the Contenance Angloise, the rota, polyphonic votive antiphons, and the carol in the medieval era and English madrigals, lute ayres, and masques in the Renaissance era, which would lead to the development of English language opera at the height of the Baroque in the 18th century.
Richard Mico was an English composer. He was born in Taunton, Somerset, the eldest of three sons of Walter Mico. The family, originally called "Micault", had immigrated to England from France several generations earlier. The Micos were a merchant family: the composer's cousin was Sir Samuel Mico (1610–65), who settled in London by the 1630s, made his fortune in overseas trade to become an alderman of London and Master of the Mercers’ Company, and was knighted after the Restoration.
Alison Crum, is an English viol player.
Caroline Trevor is an English contralto, focused on early music and Baroque music in historically informed performance. She has been one of two alto voices in the award-winning ensemble The Tallis Scholars since 1982.
The Musical Antiquarian Society was a British society established in 1840. It published, during seven years, 19 volumes of choral music from the 16th and 17th centuries.
