Last night's opening concert was a case in point, Love's Alchemy from
Viol and Lute group Concordia bringing to light many gems, masterpieces of technical and emotional quality in their own right, which deserve a wider public.
La proposition de loi presentee, au lendemain du suicide de la mineure Amina Filali, mariee a son violeur, par le groupe de l'Alliance socialiste - et qui devait etre adoptee a l'unanimite, mardi soir par la Chambre des Conseillers - considere que le
viol constitue un crime en soi, abstraction faite de l'initiative prise par le violeur ou ses proches de demander ou non en mariage la victime.
The sonatas for two bass
viols with optional continuo present players with greater difficulties but also greater rewards.
With creamy-voiced counter tenor Robin Blaze accompanied by varied batteries of
viols, lute, cornett, shawms, sackbut, recorder, slide trumpet and even bagpipes, it is a colourful aural patchwork of the kind with which the late David Munrow first establi shed a popular following for early music back in the 1960s.
The professor will talk about Looking For Lost Sounds, Searching for the Early
Viol.
The Fantasy-Suites for Four
Viols. Edited by John Dornenburg.
Commenting on the success of the workshop at The Friends Meeting House, Warwick, arts society director, Richard Phillips, said: "The Rose Consort of
Viols is one of Europe's finest collection of
viol players and everybody who attended the workshop had a fantastic time.
Music blended with poetry is always a rare event at the festival, and Concordia, with a lovely programme of early 17th century music for the
viol, which they have called Crye , produced some exquisite sounds.
They eschew the option of adding theorbo or harpsichord continuo (which Couperin, at least, thought second best to the sound of unaccompanied
viols), and there is certainly no lack of fullness in the sonority.
It is an approach that works superbly with a consort of
viols. The clarity of this bowed instrument, with its airy but resonant tone quality, is almost an instrumental counterpart to Dame Emma's singing style.
The 350th anniversary of the untimely death of William Lawes, at the siege of Chester during England's Civil War, was commemorated at Oxford in September 1995 with a series of lectures and concerts and a coaching course on his music for
viols. The lectures, with a few exceptions, are now the essays in this volume.
Arnold Dolmetsch had greater faith in the work, and included a suite from it (performed on four
viols and harpsichord) in a concert of music by William and Henry Lawes in February 1894.