The evocative sound of the Deller Consort is one of the lasting wonders of the pioneering years of the early music revival, an era which between 1955-63 captured the ensemble at its peak. Some will argue for selected pearls in the Harmonia Mundi period up to Alfred Deller’s death in 1974 and beyond, though the Vanguard Bach Guild catalogue is where the inimitable luminosity lies: the hovering control of Deller and April Cantelo, as the primi inter pares above the delectable blend and distinctive individuality of Wilfred Brown, Gerald English and Maurice Bevan. They were all fine artists in their own right before specialisation led to the current trend of dedicated ‘ consort’ singers in the last quarter of the century.
This two-CD collection celebrates 50 years of a group, more than half of whose life has been extended by the collective enthusiasm and ability of Mark, Deller’s countertenor son, who has kept the group intact. He would be the first to say that the golden years were dependent on his father’s artistry. This is conveyed in his carefully chosen compilation. It covers the radiant stillness of Tallis’s first-part of the Lamentations in which Deller’s ethereal initial statement of ‘Jerusalem’ is spell-binding, as is ‘Jam Christus’, wonderfully recorded by that most enterprising of producer/entrepreneurs, Seymour Solomon. The characterisation in the more vernacular-oriented songs, such as Hoyda! Jolly Rutterkin by Cornysh, are perhaps the most dated in the politesse of the innuendo; despite the ropey corners, one is susceptible to all the exquisite nuances in Wilbye’s Sweet honey-sucking bees, one of Jacobean England’s most perfect madrigals if only for the timing of a poignant shift to the major on ‘was never dart so sharp’. Schubertian in effect, it is wrung out with blissful bitter-sweet abandon by the Deller Consort. Indeed, it is that pivotal English acceptance, and at the same time measured filtering of Italianate emotion which makes the Deller Consort’s relationship with Morley and Wilbye so especially rewarding and natural. Draw on, sweet night has never been bettered in 50 years.
Alongside the indigenous fare are some miscellaneous French chansons, of which Mon coeur se recommande is the most refined of little pearls, sung here with disarming intimacy and warmth. Mark Deller has clearly chosen with his heart as well as covering a representative range of the Consort’s repertoire, none more adventurous than the Italian madrigal selection in which many listeners were introduced for the first time to the dramatic essence of Monteverdi (all right, there was Nadia Boulanger) and the quixotic world of Gesualdo. The latter, oddly, seems less old-fashioned than when the unorthodox Prince’s music came to the fore in the 1980s with performances by The Consort of Musick and others. Of course, rather less is made of inherent linguistic gesture than we are accustomed to these days with exponents such as the Concerto Italiano. And yet there is a natural instinct for colouring and reflective pacing, a virtue whose timelessness is caught in the beautifully judged Zefiro torna by Monteverdi and Gesualdo’s famous Moro, lasso, from their respective Book 6s. One occasionally wishes for rather more animation to counteract the finely accentuated ensemble, but no lover of Italian renaissance music will dispense with these often ravishing and profound readings. Altogether, a celebratory treasure-trove of delectable and beguiling qualities.'