This was a lovely concert of English viol music, specifically William Byrd, from the late Tudor/early Jacobean period. Phantasm are seriously good at this stuff.
Janie was up for this one. Wigmore Hall – warmer, much warmer. Byrd too.
Funnily enough, come the interval I realise that, sitting behind me, was the very couple I sat next to at the Ancient Montreal concert the previous week, with whom I had swapped stories about the cold…
…we all agreed that the Wigmore Hall is much warmer. There’s something warm about Phantasm too. They come across as a very mellow, gentle ensemble. Laurence Dreyfuss always explains things and reads things out as if he is sitting in your private parlour having a comfy chat.
Here is a link to the Wigmore Hall resource on this concert.
Anyway the music was very soothing and relaxing, although it didn’t quite manage to do the de-stressing job on us that particular Tuesday night, while we were both having “a bit of a week”. That is the thing about Tuesday evening concerts.
That’s not Phantasm’s fault, nor the Wigmore Hall’s I do realise.