COMPOSERS: Christopher Simpson LABELS: Deutsche Harmonia Mundi ALBUM TITLE: Simpson WORKS: The Four Seasons PERFORMER: Sirius Viols CATALOGUE NO: 88875190982
Well over half a century before Vivaldi published Le Quattro Stagioni, the 17th-century English composer Christopher Simpson wrote his own musical journey through the year, scored for the more intimate resources of three viols and continuo. A gamba virtuoso himself, Simpson also wrote a number of texts on contemporary viol playing techniques which were vital to the instrument’s 20th-century revival.
These beguiling, ever-changing works – swansongs of the viol repertory – have a pervasively wistful quality, entwining reflective fantasias with lithe dances and embroidered ‘divisions’ involving rapid flourishes over hypnotic ground basses – the 17th-century’s answer to jazz riffs, lending the music a real improvisatory quality.
Frauke Hess, Hille and Marthe Perl – the three Graces of the gamba world – balance eloquence and virtuosity here in a finely-judged equilibrium. Their sound is pellucid, ensemble and articulation flawless. The inventive continuo realisations paint the seasons’ variegated colours: the glittery, metal-strung cittern and bandora evoke autumnal frosts and icy winters; the resonant English theorbo and delicate guitar suggest verdant spring, while an airy chamber organ wafts soft summer breezes. Warmly recorded by Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, the whole makes for a subtle yet sensuous odyssey through the cycle of the year.
Kate Bolton-Porciatti
Listen to an excerpt from this recording here.