Release Date: 22 September 2023
Label: ECM Records
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 028948560066
Genres: Classical
Description
After a programme of works thematically spun around Renaissance composer John Dowland's Lachrimae Pavans (ECM 2189), violinist John Holloway and his ensemble now devote their art to Baroque composer Henry Purcell's "fantazias". Commenting on the fantasias in his detailed liner note, Holloway remarks how "it is tempting to see their brilliant distillation of the very best of Byrd, Lawes, Jenkins and Locke as a personal farewell to a kind of music, which in Purcell's own chamber music would soon be superseded by sonatas." Purcell's fantasias are regarded as some of the finest and most intricately wrought works in the genre, embracing profound counterpoint and a great command of all of the polyphonal techniques of the time. Holloway and the ensemble's reading of the three- and four-part fantasias offers deep insight into the compositions' fabric, revealing a fresh perspective of a composer with, as Holloway notes, "an extraordinary ability to walk the fine line between joy and sorrow, to beautifully express the melancholy which was such a characteristic mood of his times."
John Holloway: violin
Monika Baer: viola
Renate Steinmann: viola
Martin Zeller: cello
"always an intimate appreciation of the way the voices weave around one another, the ingenuity of Purcell's counterpoint, and an obvious enjoyment of the harmonic collisions as the parts entwine - loads to enjoy" – BBC Radio 3, Record Review
"John Holloway plays the Baroque violin with a sinewy sweetness, his lines as textured and alive as the bark of a tree or the hand of a nonagenarian." – VAN Magazine
"As a quartet, [Holloway] and his colleagues open out the polyphony and bring a courtly elegance of gesture to those dance-like codas, while the minor-major harmony still blooms like an unseasonal rose in a Swiss radio-studio ambience." – The Strad
"[John Holloway and friends] extract more dynamism from the music than many viol consort accounts: the first four-part one is a case in point, usually rather dreamy thing but here altogether jauntier." – Gramophone
"played with wrenching emotion by the John Holloway Ensemble [...] a listening experience that is never comfortable but always compelling." - The Arts Desk
Tracklisting
Vijay Iyer; Wadada Leo Smith
Anouar Brahem; Anja Lechner; Django Bates; Dave Holland
Patrick Demenga; Latvian State Academic Choir; Youth Choir Kamer; Riga Cathedral Boys Choir; Andres
Nicolas Masson; Colin Vallon; Patrice Moret; Lionel Friedli
Various artists
Yuval Cohen Quartet
Thomas Stronen; Craig Taborn; Chris Potter; Sinikka Langeland; Jorge Rossy
Stephan Micus
St. Florianer Sangerknaben; Ars Antiqua Austria; Gunar Letzbor
Arte Minima; Pedro Sousa Silva
La Colombina; Schola Antiqua
Capricornus Consort Basel
Ensemble Diderot, Johannes Pramsohler
Enno Poppe, Klangforum Wien, PHACE, Nacho de Paz, Pierre Roullier, Ensemble Diagonal, Rut Schereine
Peter Rundel, Wiener Symphoniker, Wolfgang Kogert
Magdalena Geka, Iveta Calite & Ilona Meija
