Release Date: 22 September 2023
Label: ECM New Series
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Lawes, Jenkins and Locke as a personal farewell to a kind of music, which in Purcell's own chamber music would soon be superseded by sonatas."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
Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica & Vida Mikneviciute
Arvo Part
Thomas Larcher
John Holloway Ensemble
Heinz Holliger & Anton Kernjak
Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, Tallinn Chamber Orchestra & Tonu Kaljuste
Karlheinz Stockhausen Michaels Reise
Andras Schiff
Ensemble La Francais
Kenneth Hamilton
Christoph Croise; Andrey Baranov; Alexander Panfilov
Trio Parnassus
Katharina Kammerloher (mezzo-soprano), Arttu Kataja (baritone), Eric Schneider (piano)
BachWerkVokal, Gordon Safari
Ostrava New Orchestra, Owen Underhill, Ostravska Banda, Petr Kotik, Elision Ensemble, Arditti Quartet, Switch~ Ensemble, Jason Thorpe Buchanan
Kilian Herold, Barbara Buntrock, Florian Donderer, Tanja Tetzlaff
