Being Henry

Viola da gamba player Vittorio Ghielmi is the founder of the viol consort Il Suonar Parlante, which plays Purcell's Fantazias of Four Parts, mostly written in 1680. At that time, the viol was on the way to being considered an archaic instrument, having been largely replaced by the fretless members of the violin family. A consort of viols, though, was still the most convenient ensemble for playing contrapuntal music, and Purcell needed an outlet for adventurous self-expression as a break from his duties of writing conventional dance music for King Charles II. The fantasias he wrote are indeed very odd, particularly in their chromatic harmonies, many of which would not reappear with regularity in the Western musical vocabulary until the twentieth century.

Viola da gamba player Vittorio Ghielmi is the founder of the viol consort Il Suonar Parlante, which plays Purcell's Fantazias of Four Parts, mostly written in 1680. At that time, the viol was on the way to being considered an archaic instrument, having been largely replaced by the fretless members of the violin family. A consort of viols, though, was still the most convenient ensemble for playing contrapuntal music, and Purcell needed an outlet for adventurous self-expression as a break from his duties of writing conventional dance music for King Charles II. The fantasias he wrote are indeed very odd, particularly in their chromatic harmonies, many of which would not reappear with regularity in the Western musical vocabulary until the twentieth century.