Fortune My Foe

Description

The year 2005 marks the 400th anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot and to commemorate the event, acclaimed costume band The York Waits release a magnificent new instrumental album of airs, dance tunes and processional pieces popular in the Jacobean era.

The album takes its title from the mournful and mighty tune "Fortune My Foe", often played at the scaffold, while other full-on shawm and sackbut numbers include "The Hunt Is Up", "All In A Garden Green" and "Belle Qui Tiens Ma Vie". Here too are rumbustious jigs, delicate Scots airs and richly textured consort pieces featuring renaissance violin, rebec, bass curtal, recorders, flute, harp, lute, guitar, cittern, bagpipes, hurdy gurdy and more.

Guy Fawkes was a Yorkshireman, born in York in 1570 and educated at St Peter's School along with two other future plotters, Christopher and John Wright. Caught on 5th November 1605 with piles of faggots and barrels of gunpowder in a rented cellar beneath the Houses of Parliament, Fawkes would become the pantomime villain of English history. Here are the sounds of his era, a Golden Age of English music and theatre - which was also a time of poverty, pestilence and plotting.

The York Waits take their name from the ancient city band of York. A concert attraction since 1977, they are celebrated for recreating both the music and appearance of their historic forebears. Appearing regularly throughout Britain for festivals, music societies, schools and private functions, the York Waits have also enlivened many national celebrations, including festivities for Richard III at Bosworth Field, Elizabeth I at Tilbury Fort and Henry VIII at Hampton Court Palace. They have also performed on TV and radio and were featured in Richard Baker's BBC series 'Comparing Notes'.