Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #155620 in Digital Music Album
• Released on: 2005-11-03
• Running time: 3575 seconds

Customer Reviews

Scholarship clouds the issue
Gibbons wrote at a time when pitch was a moveable feast. In academic terms this allows for speculation on how low or how high music should 'sit' and this recording makes the case for 'low' settings of music from the London of the 1610s & 1620s. This means aurally that the basses sing in their boots most of the time and the 'ping' one usually associates with boys voices taking the top line is lost... The music presented on this disc is amongst Gibbons' best but, at low pitch, it sounds far less vibrant and less compelling than at our modern pitch of A440. The viol playing from Fretwork is universally excellent and the recorded sound is clean but the 'Merrie Noyse' of Gibbons is missing its merriment. Recommended but with reservations, those due almost exclusively to an academic fussiness which ultimately defeats the intentions of a long-dead composer.

Great early 17th century church music in English
I used to have some of these on an LP. I missed them over the years and it was good to hear them again.