Consort Music

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A fascinating historical snapshot into the performing styles of early music during the mid 1950s. Thurston Dart secures neat playing but constant vibrato from the violins jars after a while. — BBC Music Magazine, June 2020, 2 out of 5 stars

Release Date: 25th Oct 2019
Catalogue No: ELQ4828574
Label: Eloquence
Length: 2 hours 24 minutes

Dowland: Lachrimae, or Seaven Teares

Work length57:43

$23.10

$31.50

Thurston Dart (director)
Philomusica of London
Recorded: 1957
Recording Venue: London

Lachrimae Antiquae

Track length3:53

$1.10

$1.50

Sir John Souch, his Galiard

Track length0:43

$1.10

$1.50

Lachrimae Antiquae Novae

Track length3:46

$1.10

$1.50

The King of Denmark's Galiard

Track length0:38

$1.10

$1.50

Lachrimae Gementes

Track length3:40

$1.10

$1.50

The Earl of Essex Galiard

Track length1:54

$1.10

$1.50

Lachrimae Tristes

Track length5:16

$1.10

$1.50

M. Thomas Collier his Galiard

Track length1:41

$1.10

$1.50

Lachrimae Coactae

Track length3:36

$1.10

$1.50

M. Nicolas Gryffith his Galiard

Track length3:03

$1.10

$1.50

Mrs Nichols Almand

Track length0:42

$1.10

$1.50

Lachrimae Amantis

Track length4:00

$1.10

$1.50

Mr. Henry Noel his Galliard

Track length1:44

$1.10

$1.50

Lachrimae Verae

Track length2:02

$1.10

$1.50

Captaine Digorie Piper his Galiard

Track length2:06

$1.10

$1.50

Semper Dowland semper dolens

Track length2:14

$1.10

$1.50

M. Giles Hobies Galiard

Track length6:10

$1.10

$1.50

Sir Henry Upton's Funeral

Track length5:56

$1.10

$1.50

M. Buctons Galiard

Track length1:34

$1.10

$1.50

M. John Langton's Pavan

Track length1:46

$1.10

$1.50

M. George Whithead his Almand

Track length1:19

$1.10

$1.50

Coprario: Suite, for violin, bass viol and chamber organ (Musical Britannica 98)

Work length6:19

$3.30

$4.50

Thurston Dart (director)
Jacobean Ensemble
Recorded: 1956
Recording Venue: Decca Studios, West Hampstead, London

Fantasy

Track length3:21

$1.10

$1.50

Alman

Track length1:31

$1.10

$1.50

Ayre

Track length1:27

$1.10

$1.50

anon.: Miserere (from Parthenia In-Violata, c.1620)

Work length1:44

$1.10

$1.50

Thurston Dart (director)
Jacobean Ensemble
Recorded: 1956
Recording Venue: Decca Studios, West Hampstead, London

Ward, J: Ayre, for two bass viols and continuo

Work length1:50

$1.10

$1.50

Thurston Dart (director)
Jacobean Ensemble
Recorded: 1956
Recording Venue: Decca Studios, West Hampstead, London

Lupo, T: Fantasia, for 2 violins, bass viol and continuo

Work length3:21

$1.10

$1.50

Thurston Dart (director)
Jacobean Ensemble
Recorded: 1956
Recording Venue: Decca Studios, West Hampstead, London

Coprario: Suite, for 2 violins, bass viol and chamber organ (Musica Britannica 102)

Work length5:45

$3.30

$4.50

Thurston Dart (director)
Jacobean Ensemble
Recorded: 1956
Recording Venue: Decca Studios, West Hampstead, London

Fantasy

Track length2:37

$1.10

$1.50

Alman

Track length1:39

$1.10

$1.50

Galliard

Track length1:29

$1.10

$1.50

Coprario: Suite for violin, bass viol and chamber organ (Musica Britannica 99)

Work length7:45

$3.30

$4.50

Thurston Dart (director)
Jacobean Ensemble
Recorded: 1956
Recording Venue: Decca Studios, West Hampstead, London

Fantasy

Track length3:35

$1.10

$1.50

Alman

Track length1:52

$1.10

$1.50

Ayre

Track length2:18

$1.10

$1.50

Hume, T: Captaine Hume's Galliard

Work length3:18

$1.10

$1.50

Thurston Dart (director)
Jacobean Ensemble
Recorded: 1956
Recording Venue: Decca Studios, West Hampstead, London

Coprario: Fantasia (Musica Britannica 8)

Work length3:30

$1.10

$1.50

Thurston Dart (director)
Jacobean Ensemble
Recorded: 1956
Recording Venue: Decca Studios, West Hampstead, London

Hume, T: Captain Hume's Lamentations

Work length6:41

$1.10

$1.50

Thurston Dart (director)
Jacobean Ensemble
Recorded: 1956
Recording Venue: Decca Studios, West Hampstead, London

Gibbons, O: Galliard (Musica Britannica 17)

Work length1:54

$1.10

$1.50

Thurston Dart (director)
Jacobean Ensemble
Recorded: 1956
Recording Venue: Decca Studios, West Hampstead, London

Dowland: Pavan

Work length4:48

$1.10

$1.50

Thurston Dart (director), Thurston Dart (harpsichord)
The Boyd Neel String Orchestra
Recorded: 1956
Recording Venue: Decca Studios, West Hampstead, London

Simpson, T: Ricercar

Work length3:20

$1.10

$1.50

Thurston Dart (director), Thurston Dart (harpsichord)
The Boyd Neel String Orchestra
Recorded: 1956
Recording Venue: Decca Studios, West Hampstead, London

Simpson, T: Alman

Work length1:18

$1.10

$1.50

Thurston Dart (director), Thurston Dart (harpsichord)
The Boyd Neel String Orchestra
Recorded: 1956
Recording Venue: Decca Studios, West Hampstead, London

Philips, P: Passamezzo Pavan

Work length4:54

$1.10

$1.50

Thurston Dart (director), Thurston Dart (harpsichord)
The Boyd Neel String Orchestra
Recorded: 1956
Recording Venue: Decca Studios, West Hampstead, London

Holborne: The funerals (Pavan)

Work length3:56

$1.10

$1.50

Thurston Dart (director), Thurston Dart (harpsichord)
The Boyd Neel String Orchestra
Recorded: 1956
Recording Venue: Decca Studios, West Hampstead, London

Holborne: Galliard

Work length1:16

$1.10

$1.50

Thurston Dart (director), Thurston Dart (harpsichord)
The Boyd Neel String Orchestra
Recorded: 1956
Recording Venue: Decca Studios, West Hampstead, London

Holborne: Almaine: The Honie-suckle

Work length1:38

$1.10

$1.50

Thurston Dart (director), Thurston Dart (harpsichord)
The Boyd Neel String Orchestra
Recorded: 1956
Recording Venue: Decca Studios, West Hampstead, London

Holborne: Heigh ho holiday

Work length1:00

$1.10

$1.50

Thurston Dart (director), Thurston Dart (harpsichord)
The Boyd Neel String Orchestra
Recorded: 1956
Recording Venue: Decca Studios, West Hampstead, London

Farrant, R: Four-Note Pavan

Work length5:27

$1.10

$1.50

Thurston Dart (director), Thurston Dart (harpsichord)
The Boyd Neel String Orchestra
Recorded: 1956
Recording Venue: Decca Studios, West Hampstead, London

Johnson, R: The temporiser

Work length3:29

$1.10

$1.50

Thurston Dart (director), Thurston Dart (harpsichord)
The Boyd Neel String Orchestra
Recorded: 1956
Recording Venue: Decca Studios, West Hampstead, London

Johnson, R: Witty wanton

Work length2:52

$1.10

$1.50

Thurston Dart (director), Thurston Dart (harpsichord)
The Boyd Neel String Orchestra
Recorded: 1956
Recording Venue: Decca Studios, West Hampstead, London

Adson: Air

Work length1:44

$1.10

$1.50

Thurston Dart (director), Thurston Dart (harpsichord)
The Boyd Neel String Orchestra
Recorded: 1956
Recording Venue: Decca Studios, West Hampstead, London

Ferrabosco, A II: Four-note pavan

Work length4:43

$1.10

$1.50

Thurston Dart (director), Thurston Dart (harpsichord)
The Boyd Neel String Orchestra
Recorded: 1956
Recording Venue: Decca Studios, West Hampstead, London

Brade: Galliard

Work length1:31

$1.10

$1.50

Thurston Dart (director), Thurston Dart (harpsichord)
The Boyd Neel String Orchestra
Recorded: 1956
Recording Venue: Decca Studios, West Hampstead, London

Brade: Almand

Work length0:57

$1.10

$1.50

Thurston Dart (director), Thurston Dart (harpsichord)
The Boyd Neel String Orchestra
Recorded: 1956
Recording Venue: Decca Studios, West Hampstead, London

Brade: Coranta

Work length1:52

$1.10

$1.50

Thurston Dart (director), Thurston Dart (harpsichord)
The Boyd Neel String Orchestra
Recorded: 1956
Recording Venue: Decca Studios, West Hampstead, London

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About

A feast of melancholia: three L’Oiseau-Lyre albums of early English chamber music from the dawn of the period-performance era, newly remastered and compiled together for the first time with much material new to CD.

With this and several other albums issued in 2019, Eloquence celebrates the art of Thurston Dart, the harpsichordist, conductor and editor who played a leading role in the early-music revival in postwar Britain. After his death in 1971 at the age of just 49, his fellow harpsichordist Igor Kipnis paid fulsome tribute to ‘a man of many parts’, whose 1954 volume on The Interpretation of Music had attained testamentary authority among his fellow musicians, matched by the skill, style and flourish of his many recordings. ‘He was the ideal musicologist-performer.’

Thurston Dart prepared the performing editions of nearly all the music on this 2CD compilation, but he struck a fine balance between scholarly rectitude, practical concerns and a performer’s instincts. For the 1957 album of Lachrymae he rearranged Dowland’s original sequence of seven linked pavans (all in the same key) followed by 14 other pieces, and produced instead an extended and varied dance-suite, representing the introvert and extrovert sides of the composer side by side. Mixing old and new instruments, he directed a modern string band playing with old-style bows, plus viols, lute and harpsichord.

From the mid-1950s also date the albums of ‘Jacobean Consort Music’ and ‘Dances from Shakespeare’s Time’ which feature secular tunes and dances by the likes of Gibbons, Holborne and Hume as well as lesser-known names such as Coprario and Brade, all drawn from a variety of sources – in the case of the Consort Music, the scholarly volumes of Musica Britannica in which Dart was a prime mover. Unavailable for decades, now receiving their first release on CD, they fill out our picture of Dart as, in the words of HC Robbins Landon, an excellent director and ‘a wizard at any keyboard’.

‘Neville Marriner manages [Coprario’s] effects with an uncanny skill and an admirable sense of what Jacobean taste might have been… This is splendid music, for the most part very well played.’ Gramophone, November 1956 (Jacobean Consort Music)

‘This record made history; it astonished in 1956 by presenting English music for strings of unsuspected beauty and accomplishment. It still astonishes.’ Gramophone, May 1973 (‘Dances of Shakespeare’s Time’)

‘An outstanding record in its day, and just as outstanding now. The music is ravishingly beautiful, the playing pretty good, the recording well managed… ideal for contemplative listening late at night.’ Gramophone, November 1973 (Dowland)

Reviews

June 2020

A fascinating historical snapshot into the performing styles of early music during the mid 1950s. Thurston Dart secures neat playing but constant vibrato from the violins jars after a while.

Consort Music

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