Album

If you feel that certain performers of early music tend to draw too much attention to their own playing and not enough to the music itself, you'll love this recording. It's not that the London-based, internationally born members of the viol consort Phantasm are in any way restrained in their playing; they are full of flash and sizzle. It's that the little-known viol consort music of Orlando Gibbons actually demands a bit of virtuoso treatment. This is extreme music of the Renaissance, almost as close to the edge at times as the late Gesualdo madrigals with which they were nearly contemporary. The centerpieces of Phantasm's Consorts for Viols album are Gibbons' two sets of Fantasies for viols, one in six parts, the other in three. These are fantasies eminently worthy of the name: they turn on a dime rhythmically and harmonically, and Gibbons delights in sequences of moods that take the listener from one polar opposite to the other. There are moments of very heavy chromaticism, and of challenging rhythmic complexity as well. Phantasm renders all this beautifully. With a very bright sound nicely recorded at the Merton College Chapel at Oxford, they push tempos and strive everywhere for intensity and sharpness. And that's just what this music needs. The recording ends with a delightful pair of dances and a variation (or "division") set. If there are any missteps here, they come in the music that rounds out the disc. Phantasm ventures into transcriptions of Gibbons' vocal music—certainly not an idea foreign to the Renaissance mind, and the famed Silver Swan, included here, was originally part of a collection indicated as suitable for either voices or viols. Several pieces of sacred polyphony also work well, but a group of transcribed keyboard pieces, even with their dense polyphony, come off as too busy. Only here does Phantasm get in the music's way, but everywhere else they enhance it, and they deserve major kudos for a convincing presentation of some profound music that until now has been known mostly to specialists.

© James Manheim, All Music Guide

CD 1
Orlando Gibbons Composer Fantasia a6 (No.5) Work Phantasm Ensemble
1	Fantasia a6 (No.5)	3:12			$0.99
Orlando Gibbons Composer Fantasia a6 (No.6) Work Phantasm Ensemble
2	Fantasia a6 (No.6)	3:41			$0.99
Orlando Gibbons Composer Fantasia a6 (No.3) Work Phantasm Ensemble
3	Fantasia a6 (No.3)	3:28			$0.99
Orlando Gibbons Composer Fantasia a6 (No.1) Work Phantasm Ensemble
4	Fantasia a6 (No.1)	3:15			$0.99
Orlando Gibbons Composer Fantasia a6 (No.2) Work Phantasm Ensemble
5	Fantasia a6 (No.2)	3:47			$0.99
Orlando Gibbons Composer Fantasia a6 (No.4) Work Phantasm Ensemble
6	Fantasia a6 (No.4)	2:54			$0.99
Orlando Gibbons Composer 3 In Nomines a5 (unidentified) Work 8:37 Phantasm Ensemble
7	In nomine No.1	3:46			$0.99
8	In nomine No.2	4:51			$0.99
Orlando Gibbons Composer Peascod Time (The Hunt's Up), MB30 Work Phantasm Ensemble
9	Hunt's up ('Peascod Time') (arr. viol consort)	6:02			$0.99
Orlando Gibbons Composer Lord Salisbury's Pavan and Galliard, MB18 and 19 Work Phantasm Ensemble
10	Lord Salisbury's Pavan and Galliard (arr. viol consort)	6:18			$0.99
Orlando Gibbons Composer Fantasia Work Phantasm Ensemble
11	Fantasia	1:50			$0.99
Orlando Gibbons Composer The Silver Swanne (madrigal, a5) Work Phantasm Ensemble
12	The Silver Swanne (madrigal, a5)	1:41			$0.99
Orlando Gibbons Composer Fantasia a3 (No.1) Work Phantasm Ensemble
13	Fantasia a3 (No.1)	2:23			$0.99
Orlando Gibbons Composer Fantasia a3 (No.2) Work Phantasm Ensemble
14	Fantasia a3 (No.2)	2:43			$0.99
Orlando Gibbons Composer Fantasia a3 (No.3) Work Phantasm Ensemble
15	Fantasia a3 (No.3)	2:23			$0.99
Orlando Gibbons Composer Fantasia a3 (No.4) Work Phantasm Ensemble
16	Fantasia a3 (No.4)	2:40			$0.99
Orlando Gibbons Composer O Lord, in thy wrath rebuke me not (anthem, a6) Work Phantasm Ensemble
17	O Lord, in thy wrath rebuke me not (a6; arr. viol consort)	3:53			$0.99
Orlando Gibbons Composer Hosanna to the son of David (a6, anthem) Work Phantasm Ensemble
18	Hosanna to the son of David (a6; arr. viol consort)	2:18			$0.99
Orlando Gibbons Composer Pavan a6 Work Phantasm Ensemble
19	Pavan a6	3:34			$0.99
Orlando Gibbons Composer Galliard a6 Work Phantasm Ensemble
20	Galliard a6	2:28			$0.99
Orlando Gibbons Composer Go from my window: Variations a6, MB40 Work Phantasm Ensemble
21	Go from my window: Variations a6, MB40	4:28			$0.99