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The middle of the 17th century was not an easy time to be a composer in England. Matthew Locke is believed to have spent much of the civil war in the Low Countries and, on his return to England in 1651, managed to keep composing through the Puritan years under Cromwell.
He is remembered now as the foremost composer of the generation before Purcell. His stage works include some of the music for The Siege of Rhodes, which lays claim to being the first English opera, and a rich legacy of instrumental music, most notably his consort music for viols.
The viol consort Phantasm, directed by Laurence Dreyfus, has been here before. This is the group’s second album of Locke, pairing the remaining suites of his Flat Consort “for my cousin Kemble” with the second half of his Little Consort, composed for tenor, treble and bass viol.
It is hard to picture the reputedly difficult, cantankerous Locke in this graceful, expressive music. Each of the suites in the Flat Consort opens with a Fantazie followed by dances, such as the Galliard, Pavan and Saraband, but these are not just facile dance movements. Locke’s questing harmonies and imaginative contrapuntal writing, heard at their peak in the third Suite, fill every bar with interest.
Phantasm, augmented where appropriate by Elizabeth Kenny on theorbo, capture this richness of invention with cultivated playing. The suites from the Little Consort, though more modest and less individual in style, make a fine addition to an attractive collection.
★★★★☆
‘Matthew Locke: Consorts Flat and Sharp’ is released by Linn
