Royal Consort
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WILLIAM LAWES THE ROYAL CONSORT PHANTASM WILLIAM LAWES THE ROYAL CONSORT THREE CONSORTS TO THE ORGAN WILLIAM LAWES (1602–1645) Royal Consort Sett No. 1 in d 2@ Corant (32) .............................. 1:52 q Aire (2) ........................................ 1:38 2# Corant (33) .............................. 1:20 w Alman (3) ................................... 1:46 2$ Morriss (34) ............................. 0:39 e Corant (4) .................................. 1:42 2% Saraband (35) ....................... 0:49 Corant (5) .................................. 0:53 r Royal Consort Sett No. 8 in C t Saraband (6) ........................... 0:43 2^ Aire (50) ..................................... 2:18 Royal Consort Sett No. 4 in D 2& Alman (51) ............................... 1:27 y Paven (22) ................................ 4:54 2* Corant (52) .............................. 2:08 u Aire (23) ..................................... 1:22 2( Corant (53) .............................. 0:44 i Aire (24) ..................................... 2:01 3) Saraband (54) ....................... 0:31 Aire (25) ..................................... 2:02 o Royal Consort Sett No. 9 in F Corant (26) .............................. 1:16 a Paven (55) ................................ 6:33 Corant (27) .............................. 1:32 3! s Aire (56) ..................................... 1:43 d Saraband (28) ....................... 0:30 3@ 3# Alman (57) ............................... 1:42 Royal Consort Sett No. 3 in d 3$ Corant (58) .............................. 1:08 f Aire (15) ..................................... 2:16 3% Alman (59) ............................... 1:44 g Aire (16) ..................................... 1:31 3^ Corant (60) .............................. 1:38 h Corant (18) .............................. 1:19 3& Saraband (61) ....................... 0:28 Alman (19) ............................... 1:20 j IV Set a5 in F ‘to the Organ’ Corant (20) .............................. 1:24 k Fantazy ........................................ 2:42 l Saraband (21) ....................... 0:44 3* 3( Paven ............................................ 6:10 Royal Consort Sett No. 5 in D 4) Aire ................................................. 2:13 ; Aire (29) ..................................... 3:30 2) Aire (30) ..................................... 1:42 2! Alman (31) ............................... 1:06 2 WILLIAM LAWES THE ROYAL CONSORT Royal Consort Sett No. 2 in d 6! Corant (66) ............................ 1:04 4! Pavan (8) .................................. 5:45 6@ Saraband (67) ...................... 0:35 Aire (9) ....................................... 1:28 4@ Sett a4 in d Aire (10) ................................... 1:30 4# Paven (76) .............................. 6:07 Galliard (11) .......................... 1:17 6# 4$ Alman (260) .......................... 2:12 Corant (12) ............................ 1:28 6$ 4% Saraband (264) .................. 0:34 4^ Saraband (13) ...................... 0:47 6% X Set a6 in c ‘to the Organ’ Royal Consort Sett No. 6 in D Fantazy (1) .............................. 3:09 Aire (37) ................................... 1:53 6^ 4& Fantazy (2) .............................. 3:26 Alman (38) ............................. 1:25 6& 4* Inomine ...................................... 4:04 Corant (39) ............................ 2:09 6* 4( Aire ................................................ 2:33 5) Morriss (41) ........................... 0:45 6( VII Set a6 in C ‘to the Organ’ Royal Consort Sett No. 7 in a Fantazy (1) .............................. 3:50 Aire (43) ................................... 2:24 7) 5! Fantazy (2) .............................. 3:04 Alman (44) ............................. 1:48 7! 5@ Aire ................................................ 3:18 5# Alman (45) ............................. 1:09 7@ Aire (46) ................................... 1:21 5$ Total Running Time: 144 minutes 5% Corant (47) ............................. 1:41 5^ Saraband (48) ..................... 0:29 Royal Consort Sett No. 10 in B flat 5& Paven (62) .............................. 3:48 5* Alman (63) ............................. 1:59 5( Corant (64) ............................ 1:33 6) Alman (65) ............................. 1:55 2 3 PHANTASM Laurence Dreyfus treble viol and director Emilia Benjamin treble viol Jonathan Manson tenor viol Mikko Perkola tenor viol 3* - 4) bass viol 6^ - 7@ Markku Luolajan-Mikkola bass viol with Elizabeth Kenny theorbo q - 3& 4! - 6% Daniel Hyde organ 3* - 4) 6^ - 7@ Emily Ashton tenor viol 6^ - 7@ 4 Recorded in the Chapel of Magdalen College, Oxford, UK 19–21 August 2013 and 30 August – 2 September 2014 Produced and recorded by Philip Hobbs Post-production by Julia Thomas Keyboard tuning by Simon Neal Cover image Charles I in three positions, 1635 by Sir Anthony van Dyck Royal Collection Trust © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II / Bridgeman Images Design by gmtoucari.com 4 5 WILLIAM LAWES THE ROYAL CONSORT PHANTASM ith Lawes’s Royal Consort, one mustn’t mince words. To put it frankly, Wthis is one of the greatest collections of ensemble dance music ever composed. In it one finds 10 ‘Setts’ or suites of dances boasting a range and depth of expression on a par with Dowland’s Lacrimae, J.S. Bach’s orchestral suites, Rameau’s orchestral dances, even the waltzes of Johann Strauss, Jr. The Royal Consort deserves such a status because of the startlingly individual way Lawes crafts his pieces: in every sett there are astounding moments that excite both mind and body. Not only are you touched by the striking musical invention, but you feel summoned to dance. And all this Lawes achieves with four bowed string instruments and a plucked theorbo. The Royal Consort wasn’t always so well received. In the late eighteenth century, Charles Burney made a point of slating the collection, calling it ‘one of the most dry, awkward and unmeaning compositions I ever remember to have had the trouble of scoring’. Given his famous dismissal of the past – not to mention the mediocre musical taste prevalent in England of the 1780s –, Burney was primed to misunderstand Lawes’s quips of the 1630s: they lacked amenity and propriety. And though it may not have made much of a difference to him, it’s amusing to learn that Burney committed an error in scoring up the Royal Consort: he only had two trebles and a bass part, and thought that the three voices amounted to the whole piece. And even then he still missed out half the dances in the collection. Still, what he derided as ‘awkward’ and ‘unmeaning’ is precisely what makes Lawes so unique, for the Royal Consort revels in taking extraordinary liberties with conventional harmony, voice-leading and phrase rhythm, liberties which still raise eyebrows today. These extravagances were acknowledged but also graciously forgiven by sympathetic contemporaries. As the seventeenth-century music lover 6 WILLIAM LAWES THE ROYAL CONSORT PHANTASM Anthony à Wood (1632–1695) put it, – perhaps too politely – ‘to indulge the ear, [Lawes] sometimes broke the rules of mathematical composition’. This indulgence ‘of the ear’ explains why, in the seventeenth century, it was the Royal Consort of Lawes, more than any other of his compositions, which was copied over and over again, even decades after the composer’s untimely death in 1645. Despite its quirks, the mix of seductive tunes and an irresistible ‘danciness’ proved an unbeatable combination. Lawes composed two versions of the Royal Consort, one for four viols (two trebles, a tenor and a bass) and theorbo – recorded here complete for the first time – and an expanded version for two violins, two bass viols and two theorbos (with four introductory fantazias or pavens and four other lighter dances, including two eccos). Though a portion of the viol version may have been composed first, it was never entirely superseded by the version for violins, as both versions continued to circulate after Lawes’s death. There is also internal evidence that Setts 7–10 in both versions were composed simultaneously. So rather than seeing the viol version as an immature project on the road to a later final statement, we can focus on what the composer achieved with his slimmer collection for viols and theorbo. Certainly some of Lawes’s contemporaries considered it complete: in a now-lost source copied by the antiquarian Sir Peter Leycester, for example – who was in Oxford with King Charles I when the pieces probably received their name – the manuscript was catalogued as ‘The Royall Consort by Will: Lawes for 4 violes with a Continued Basse’. The anomalous mention of ‘Royal’ in the title of the collection seems therefore a strike against a treasonous Parliament in the assertion of the pieces’ connection to the Westminster Court after it escaped to Oxford under none too pleasant circumstances. The Consort, in other 6 7 WILLIAM LAWES THE ROYAL CONSORT PHANTASM words – here a metaphor for a collection of ‘Setts’ of pieces organized by key – was probably composed in the mid-1630s when Lawes was ‘musician in ordinary’ for the King’s ‘Lutes, Viols and Voices’, but the collection became Royal only once kingship itself was under threat, and people chose up sides. Besides having been written for royalty, the Royal Consort is also dance music written ‘in a high style’. It is not that the music is merely showier than normal dance music, but that Lawes composes his parts as if the performing musicians are themselves dancing. Rather than music to accompany actual dance, the Royal Consort