Tag: William Lawes

Lighten Mine Eies, Ensemble Près De Votre Oreille, Wigmore Hall, 17 February 2026

I fought the (William) Lawes and…Parliamentarians, tragically, existentially, won.

This was a delicious lunchtime concert at The Wig. Here is a link to the Wigmore Hall resource on this concert.

All music by William Lawes, this is what we heard:

  • Choice Psalmes: – Music, the master of thy art is dead
  • Harp Consort No. 9 in D:– Pavin on a theme by Cormacke
  • Choice Psalmes: – My God, my rock, regard my cry
    • My God, my rock, regard my cry (arranged by Loris Barrucand)
    • Judah in exile wanders
  • Harp Consort No. 5 In D: – Alman – Saraband
  • Harp Consort No. 4 in D: – Coranto
  • Choice Psalmes: – Whieles I this standing lake swathed up with ewe
    • Love, I obey, shoot home thy dart
    • O sing unto the Lord a new song
  • Harp Consort No. 11 in D: – Fantazy
  • Choice Psalmes: – Ne irascaris, Domine
  • Harp Consort No. 10 in G: – Paven on a theme by Coprario
  • Choice Psalmes: – How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord
    • Come sing the great Jehova’s praise
    • In resurrectione tua
  • Harp Consort No. 8 in G
  • Choice Psalmes: – O my Clarissa

This concert is basically their latest album Lighten Mine Eies, available I’m sure at all good CD outlets and streaming, e.g. YouTube Music – click here.

Below is a little video clip of them performing one of the instrumental pieces:

While below is a little video clip of them performing one of the choral pieces:

We were supposed to hear Maïlys de Villoutreys sing the soprano parts, but she was unfortunately unwell. Enter a late replacement in the form of Marion Tassou, who did a wonderful job given the near-absence of preparation and rehearsal time.

Ensemble Près are a very together-looking unit, handling the late soprano switch like the commensurate professionals they clearly are.

We really enjoyed this concert and have enjoyed listening to their recordings of 16th and 17th century English music since. An unusual choice of repertoire for a young French ensemble. I hope it works for them.

Robin Pharo, their leader and gambist, did mention that they have started work on some French repertoire as well. Quelle surprise!

John Dowland And His Cheery Pals, Tim Mead & Sergio Bucheli, Wigmore Hall, 16 September 2024

John Dowland, CC BY-SA 4.0 click here for details

OK, I have a confession to make. The Wigmore Hall did not title this concert “John Dowland And His Cheery Pals”; it merely promised us the superb countertenor Tim Mead and the also excellent lutenist/theorboist Sergio Bucheli.

On arrival, I made a bee-line to the desk where a young woman was handing out programmes. I told Janie that the programme was bound to include a lyric sheet so we all could sing along.

Don’t be ridiculous…

…said Janie.

Have fun…

…said the far more open-minded young lady.

We found ourselves sitting next to a Scottish woman named Fiona, who had sung in her youth and was clearly a huge fan of Tim Mead. She said she might inadvertently sing along, which Janie tells me Fiona sort-of did – under her breath. I chose not to sing along, partly because Tim Mead sings in the wrong pitch for me. I might have tried singing a whole octave down, but wouldn’t have wanted to upstage Tim that way.

More seriously, it was a truly lovely concert. Here is a link to that very programme and song sheet if you want to see what the whole thing contained.

I was familiar with many of the John Dowland songs and lute fantasias, whereas some of the material by other composers was new to me.

We were particularly taken with John Danyel’s three part song, “Mrs M E her funeral tears for the death of her husband”…

…did those guys compete for maximum misery in the subject matter of their songs in those days?…

…a truly beautiful sound that has made me seek out some more John Danyel to hear after the concert.

Here is a link to the first part of the Mrs ME song – don’t be put off if you see a line through the link – it should work for you even if you are not a YouTube Music subscriber.

Tim Mead does a lot of his work with La Nuova Musica – in fact Janie and I didn’t realise that we had seen Tim sing before at one of their concerts – at St John’s Smith Square in 2015:

La Nuova Musica, St John’s Smith Square, 20 March 2015

We had seen Sergio Bucheli several times before, most recently at Wigmore Hall just a few months ago:

All The Bs: Biber, Benjamin, Byrd, Bach…& Brett – Brett Dean Concert, Wigmore Hall, 20 April 2024

We enjoyed every bit of the Dowland and Pals concert, despite the downcast subject matter. With Dowland you can be pretty sure about what you are going to get. Otherwise it would be a bit like going to a Leonard Cohen concert and complaining that the songs are miserable.

Tim Mead and Sergio Bucheli seemed very much at home in this late Renaissance space, although my guess is that home base for them is Baroque music from 70 to 100 years later than the works we heard. I cannot find a sample of these two performing late Renaissance works, but this sampler from their recent album about Purcell And His Perky Pals (OK, it’s actually named Beauteous Softness)…

… has inspired me to stream that album as soon as I have some proper listening time…which might be as soon as 24 hours after the Dowland & Pals concert.

Leading Lights Before The English Civil War, Phantasm, Wigmore Hall, 14 May 2018

When Janie said, “viols again?”, even I had to admit that I’d gone a bit crazy booking mid 17th century viol music this season.

“But this is rarely-heard English viol consort music from just before the Civil War”, I protested.

While Janie announced afterwards that she couldn’t honestly tell the difference between English style and European styles…

…and I had to admit that I’d struggle to pinpoint time and location in a “blind tasting”…

…we both agreed that, as usual, we thoroughly enjoyed hearing this type of viol consort music.

Phantasm are supremely professional, masters of their instruments and seasoned at coping with the complexities of this multi-voiced music.

Here is a link to the Wigmore Hall stub for this concert.

I don’t think I’d knowingly heard any William Lawes before – certainly not his  viol music.

William Lawes with autograph
He looks like a quintessential cavalier of the period, which sums up his career and untimely death (reportedly “casually shot”) soon after entering the theatre of war for the first and last time.

There’s not a lot of Lawes viol music played by Phantasm to be found on the web, but here is the paven from the consort set in F, which we heard on the evening:

…we didn’t have the organ accompaniment, but we did have a sixth viol player in the second half for those pieces that demand six viols.

Likewise, I was not familiar with the work John Jenkins – his viol music was a little lighter in tone, although all such viol consort music is, by its nature, pretty moody.

Even harder to find on line, here are some other dudes playing a John Jenkins Fantasy a6 other than the ones we heard. You’ll get the idea and it is still lovely:

Something about this sort of music heard live touches the soul – I think it is the close proximity to the vibrations of all of those viols.

We both felt so calm and tranquil after the concert we could hardly get our act together to eat when we got home, but somehow we managed it. A very pleasurable end to a Monday off work.