Quite how far the influence of the grand seventeenth-century English consort tradition extended beyond native shores is hard to estimate. What we do know from continental libraries and notable contemporary publications is that the music of emigres such as William Brade and Thomas Simpson (one might also add William Young and Henry Butler as later representatives of this travelling cohort) was well-known and respected in North European courts. Whilst several Englishmen of previous generations can be counted as religious refugees, Brade and Simpson seem to have been little more than canny opportunists who knew how well buttered their Brot could be in courts such as Buckeburg near Hanover. This new offering of music from that very court celebrates the cultivated patronage of Ernst III and in particular the special appeal of these Anglo-German pieces. The constitution of these published dance sets, such as the distinctive anthology Taffel-Consort assembled by Simpson in 1621, still rely heavily on Pavans and Galliards in the traditional English vein; many such examples are transcriptions of Dowland whose fame was still undiminished at this time. Others hint at a more integrated sense of a dance ‘set’, often including established masque tunes, whilst the ever-burgeoning Italian style and rise of the violin undoubtedly plays its part in new vigorous idioms and scorings.
The King’s Noyse under their director, David Douglass, are an accomplished American consort renowned for interesting programmes. A good deal of this music comes from the theatre, or once removed, from the Jacobean Masque; William Brade takes the lion’s share here and his energetic rhythmic style is executed with great precision. The Galliard XIV is a case in point, though this also benefits from some delicately articulated textural exchanges. The more profound moments in this repertoire are, by and large, to be heard in the noble strains of the tripartite Pavan (or Paduana in its fashionable guise) and this is where the contrapuntal craft of the homeland is most evident. Neither Brade nor Simpson are especially refined in their part-writing but competence, at the very least, shines through. The King’s Noyse are variable here, sweetly poignant in Simpson’s innovative Paduan (track 17) though sometimes a little scratchy at the top, and intonation is not always as good as it should be: sound certainly suffers in Johann Grabbe’s madrigal Ahi, misera mia vita.
An enjoyable disc in many respects but, overall, a rather more satisfying flavour of this period is found in Hyperion’s “An Englishman Abroad” played by The Parley of Instruments under Peter Holman.'