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Fanfare Magazine: 40:3 (01-02 / 2017) 
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Opus Arte
OACD9040D




Code-barres / Barcode : 0809478090403

 
Reviewer: Barry Brenesal
 

This album is very similar in structure to another entitled These Distracting Times, released in 2009 and reviewed by J. F. Weber (Obsidian 702; Fanfare 33:1). That disc featured a mix of pieces for viol consort, anthems and canticles for choir (with and without viol consort), and works for solo organ. David Skinner led Alamire and the Choir of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. Our current release features an identical mix of textures (the album itself is entitled Anthems & Canticles), save that the choral works were all composed for accompaniment by viol consort, along the lines of many accompanied English songs published in Tomkins’s youth. Fretwork only performs three selections and the Sidney Sussex Choir, 12, under Skinner. On this release, the division of labor is spread identically, with seven cuts allocated to Phantasm by itself, and seven featuring the Magdalen College of Oxford.
 

There isn’t much duplication between these releases, fortunately. Only the pair of canticles from the Fifth Service and the Pavan VII can be heard on both albums. Skinner and Hyde favor performances that are very similar in tempos, balance, accent, and rhythmic treatment. I marginally prefer tenor Timothy Lintern in the Nunc dimitis on this release for his briefly heard but attractive timbre—otherwise, there’s not much to choose between the choirs. Fretwork, on the other hand, is significantly slower in its tempos than Phantasm, roughly 56 bpm versus 80. Phantasm, as always, takes pains to clarify textures and point entries. This is especially important in the six-part Fantasia XVII and the Pavan and Galliard where Tomkins uses his larger ensemble to advantage, playing off various trio and quartet groupings against one another, as Laurence Dreyfus points out in his excellent notes. Fretwork, by contrast, exploits its slower tempos and darker sound to create a very stately effect that is only slightly altered after the divisions begin.
 

Though I wouldn’t want to do without either album, the choral sound slightly favors Hyde and his singers. The sound imaging of individual soloists is a bit firmer on this release, recorded in the Chapel of Merton College, Oxford, than under Skinner, where they are slightly more recessed from the microphones. The engineering is any case far better than the previous pairing of Hyde and Phantasm in music by John Ward (Linn 427).

Given the quality of Tomkins’s music and the quality of both these recordings, I wouldn’t want to do without either. But if I had to choose one, it would be the Hyde/Phantasm collaboration, in large part because Phantasm remains, to my mind, without peer among modern viol consorts on records today, for its beauty of tone and attention to phrasing.


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