Search - Fretwork :: Fretwork: Music For Viols

A voice teacher and early music fan

George Peabody | Planet Earth | 02/12/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"A SKILLED FRETWORK EXTRACTS A MINOR COMPLAINT FROM 'MOI'.



The group 'Fretwork', after a year of thorough preparation, gave its first concert in July 1986 in the Wigmore Hall. Their goal was to restore the full wealth of the repertoire for viol consort. They have come a long way to achieve all of this.



Often a singer, such as Michael Chance joins them as one of the foremost exponents of the English vocal tradition. This CD portrait is devoted to English music of the golden period of Elizabeth I,James I and Charles I, which was a period of extraordinary greatness in music in terms of both quality and quantity.



I'm giving this disc 5 stars because the quality of the music and its performance is very good. But I am very annoyed at Fretwork who likes to put out albums with Michael Chance's name on it and gives him only a few songs on the recording. On this one ( in spite of the above track listing) he has only 3 songs: "Come to me Grief Forever","Lasso vita mio" and "Ye Sacred Muses". Then all we hear are viols for the rest of the album. This is true of all their albums on which they list Chance; so be warned that's the way it is. I think Fretwork is a talented group, but a little more variety would be appreciated!!!"