In Chains of Gold Volume 2
Released on June 26th, it was 'Recording of the week' on Prestomusic.com:
www.prestomusic.com/classical/articles/3346--recording-of-the-week-byrd-and-more-from-the-magdalena-consort-and-friends
For many people, verse-anthems are a phenomenon encountered exclusively in Anglican evensong services, accompanied by the organ. If you somehow missed the original Chains of Gold and are expecting that ‘churchy’ sound here – delightful, but perhaps a little tame – then prepare for a pleasant surprise .... genuinely made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up ... a magnificent sequel. A third volume is planned, and I for one can’t wait.
It’s a really fascinating programme ... I think this is a very, very special recording... very much worth procuring
BBC Record Review, June 27th 2020
... an intense, beautifully considered atmosphere ... a beautifully performed and well judged disc, where the striving for historically informed performance does not mask the high level of musicianship and an engaging intimacy of performance. The repertoire is remarkably varied, and it forms not only a striking history but a lovely recital.
Planet Hugill, June 30 2020
... wonderful music with a dazzling kaleidoscope of colours.
The Times, July 3 2020
The performances leave nothing to be desired. The viols and wind are ... the top of their profession. All the singers are excellent ... every individual performer, alongside their technical and musicological colleagues, has been crucial in making this an outstanding disc.
Early Music Review, July 6 2020
This is the second volume of Bill Hunt’s great project to edit and record the corpus of pre-Restoration Verse Anthems, of which Volume 1, focussing on Gibbons, appeared in 2018 and was reviewed in January of that year ... This second volume has a wonderful range of music starting with William Byrd ... The ensemble singing is outstanding ... While the singing is agile as well as rich (listen to the nimble rhythms in 'Christ rising again'), the playing is equally elegant. Fretwork shares the bulk of it, and their sinuous lines weave a magical backdrop to the voices ... But the real triumph of this project is to unite scholarship, performance practice and passionate music-making. Often two of these three are fulfilled, but rarely all three. You can sense the energy and passion in the project from the commitment of the musicians, all skilled practitioners in their fields ... To raise more questions than you answer and to excite your followers with the same passion to find out more is the mark of all inspired educators, and this CD is with its splendid notes is a fine example of that.
Early Music Review, July 10 2020
“…to draw the hearer, as it were, in chains of gold by the ears to the consideration of holy things”. It's an enticing image and one that the Magdalena Consort most certainly live up to in their second instalment of English Pre-Restoration verse anthems. The vowel sounds – and this is a sentence I never thought I would write – are thrilling … The intonation and blend against the glistening strings of Fretwork are second to none.
Most welcome are the pungent sounds of the 'Tudor organ' dazzlingly played by Silas Wollston. Byrd's Fantasia No 46 is skilfully paced, and Wollston's performance commands our patience as he refuses to hurry into bravura.
Then when the buzzy brass of His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts emerge in Byrd's Look and bow down, the singers are bathed in bronzed majesty. This is music-making of the highest calibre, steeped in emotional intelligence and affective balance....Booklet notes by Andrew Johnstone and William Hunt crown the disc with excellent musicological detail.
Gramophone, September 2020
Eight works by Byrd form a feast of devotional fervour, complemented by pieces from John Bull and others. Signifying the liturgically and aesthetically double-minded attitudes of Elizabeth I, these glorious, deeply-felt, exquisitely crafted performances make a freshly-coined impression. Simon Wollston plays a number of voluntaries on the ‘Saint Teilo’ organ by Goetze and Gwynn. Recorded with brilliant clarity and intimacy, this thoughtful, scholarly, profound project satisfies on every level.
Choir and Organ, Nov/Dec 2020
The same ‘stellar team’ of Magdalena Consort, Fretwork and His Majestys Sagbutts and Cornetts was assembled again in January 2019 to record a second volume of verse music, featuring some of the most famous pieces from the earlier period of the repertoire, such as William Byrd’s Easter anthem Christ rising and Thomas Morley’s Out of the deep. This CD also includes some significant pieces of reconstruction. Look and bow down is a setting by William Byrd of the words of Queen Elizabeth on the defeat of the Armada. Long reputed to have been performed before her in November 1588 in a great procession before St Paul’s Cathedral, the music has only recently been extracted from a piece of lute intabulation. O God of Gods is a magnificent anthem for soloists and double choir, written to celebrate the accession of James I by Edmund Hooper, a leading contemporary of Gibbons, who was highly regarded in his own time but is scarcely known today. Hearken ye nations, also by Hooper, is an impassioned expression of thanksgiving for deliverance from the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, presumably performed for James and, like many of the pieces in this CD, almost certainly never heard again until now. In addition to the rich array of viols and early wind used on our Gibbons CD, the instrumental accompaniment this time will include a specially reconstructed ‘Tudor organ’, made by the historical makers Goetze and Gwynn – fascinatingly different in character from anything you are likely to have heard. Minute attention is being given to many details, and nowhere more than in the expertise of Peter Harvey’s group of specialist singers Magdalena Consort, whose familiarity with period style will give these performances a vividness that relates this highly rhetorical music to the revolutionary era of the early baroque, where it truly belongs.
Here are an introduction and some videos from our latest recording, which was released on June 26th 2020.
www.prestomusic.com/classical/articles/3346--recording-of-the-week-byrd-and-more-from-the-magdalena-consort-and-friends
For many people, verse-anthems are a phenomenon encountered exclusively in Anglican evensong services, accompanied by the organ. If you somehow missed the original Chains of Gold and are expecting that ‘churchy’ sound here – delightful, but perhaps a little tame – then prepare for a pleasant surprise .... genuinely made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up ... a magnificent sequel. A third volume is planned, and I for one can’t wait.
It’s a really fascinating programme ... I think this is a very, very special recording... very much worth procuring
BBC Record Review, June 27th 2020
... an intense, beautifully considered atmosphere ... a beautifully performed and well judged disc, where the striving for historically informed performance does not mask the high level of musicianship and an engaging intimacy of performance. The repertoire is remarkably varied, and it forms not only a striking history but a lovely recital.
Planet Hugill, June 30 2020
... wonderful music with a dazzling kaleidoscope of colours.
The Times, July 3 2020
The performances leave nothing to be desired. The viols and wind are ... the top of their profession. All the singers are excellent ... every individual performer, alongside their technical and musicological colleagues, has been crucial in making this an outstanding disc.
Early Music Review, July 6 2020
This is the second volume of Bill Hunt’s great project to edit and record the corpus of pre-Restoration Verse Anthems, of which Volume 1, focussing on Gibbons, appeared in 2018 and was reviewed in January of that year ... This second volume has a wonderful range of music starting with William Byrd ... The ensemble singing is outstanding ... While the singing is agile as well as rich (listen to the nimble rhythms in 'Christ rising again'), the playing is equally elegant. Fretwork shares the bulk of it, and their sinuous lines weave a magical backdrop to the voices ... But the real triumph of this project is to unite scholarship, performance practice and passionate music-making. Often two of these three are fulfilled, but rarely all three. You can sense the energy and passion in the project from the commitment of the musicians, all skilled practitioners in their fields ... To raise more questions than you answer and to excite your followers with the same passion to find out more is the mark of all inspired educators, and this CD is with its splendid notes is a fine example of that.
Early Music Review, July 10 2020
“…to draw the hearer, as it were, in chains of gold by the ears to the consideration of holy things”. It's an enticing image and one that the Magdalena Consort most certainly live up to in their second instalment of English Pre-Restoration verse anthems. The vowel sounds – and this is a sentence I never thought I would write – are thrilling … The intonation and blend against the glistening strings of Fretwork are second to none.
Most welcome are the pungent sounds of the 'Tudor organ' dazzlingly played by Silas Wollston. Byrd's Fantasia No 46 is skilfully paced, and Wollston's performance commands our patience as he refuses to hurry into bravura.
Then when the buzzy brass of His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts emerge in Byrd's Look and bow down, the singers are bathed in bronzed majesty. This is music-making of the highest calibre, steeped in emotional intelligence and affective balance....Booklet notes by Andrew Johnstone and William Hunt crown the disc with excellent musicological detail.
Gramophone, September 2020
Eight works by Byrd form a feast of devotional fervour, complemented by pieces from John Bull and others. Signifying the liturgically and aesthetically double-minded attitudes of Elizabeth I, these glorious, deeply-felt, exquisitely crafted performances make a freshly-coined impression. Simon Wollston plays a number of voluntaries on the ‘Saint Teilo’ organ by Goetze and Gwynn. Recorded with brilliant clarity and intimacy, this thoughtful, scholarly, profound project satisfies on every level.
Choir and Organ, Nov/Dec 2020
The same ‘stellar team’ of Magdalena Consort, Fretwork and His Majestys Sagbutts and Cornetts was assembled again in January 2019 to record a second volume of verse music, featuring some of the most famous pieces from the earlier period of the repertoire, such as William Byrd’s Easter anthem Christ rising and Thomas Morley’s Out of the deep. This CD also includes some significant pieces of reconstruction. Look and bow down is a setting by William Byrd of the words of Queen Elizabeth on the defeat of the Armada. Long reputed to have been performed before her in November 1588 in a great procession before St Paul’s Cathedral, the music has only recently been extracted from a piece of lute intabulation. O God of Gods is a magnificent anthem for soloists and double choir, written to celebrate the accession of James I by Edmund Hooper, a leading contemporary of Gibbons, who was highly regarded in his own time but is scarcely known today. Hearken ye nations, also by Hooper, is an impassioned expression of thanksgiving for deliverance from the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, presumably performed for James and, like many of the pieces in this CD, almost certainly never heard again until now. In addition to the rich array of viols and early wind used on our Gibbons CD, the instrumental accompaniment this time will include a specially reconstructed ‘Tudor organ’, made by the historical makers Goetze and Gwynn – fascinatingly different in character from anything you are likely to have heard. Minute attention is being given to many details, and nowhere more than in the expertise of Peter Harvey’s group of specialist singers Magdalena Consort, whose familiarity with period style will give these performances a vividness that relates this highly rhetorical music to the revolutionary era of the early baroque, where it truly belongs.
Here are an introduction and some videos from our latest recording, which was released on June 26th 2020.