Earlier this year, in the fourth volume of his magnificent Records of English Court Music, Andrew Ashbee published for the first time a substantial quantity of documents giving the details of King Charles I's private music while he was still Prince of Wales. In particular, the newly discovered annual accounts of the Receiver General show that Prince Charles employed 17 musicians, including Orlando Gibbons, Thomas Lupo, Angelo Notari, Thomas Ford, John Daniel, Alfonso Ferrabosco the younger and John Coprario. This is a breathtaking list of names. Charles now becomes one of the era's major musical patrons; and it is an unkind stroke of fate that the greatest of these musicians all died within three years of his accession to the throne.
Peter Holman's new record therefore commemorates an important and fresh chapter in the history of English music; and his characteristically lucid note is itself a significant contribution to our understanding of that chapter, even if it underplays the novelty of his enterprise.
Sensibly, though, the disc does not try to cover the full breadth of Charles's patronage. Instead it focuses on just two composers: the ever-green Orlando Gibbons, represented by all his music with the ''great dooble base'' viol and the five fantasies in trio-sonata texture; and a good selection of works by the more rarely heard, indeed unjustly sidelined, Thomas Lupo. Holman argues that all this music is suitable and perhaps intended for the violin consort, which is how it is performed here.
The musicians of The Parley of Instruments give well-judged and cleanly balanced accounts of the music. They make a most persuasive case for the magically controlled music of Lupo; and they are nicely flexible in their approach to Gibbons's often wayward but always irresistible genius. It is therefore a record of considerable importance, amply supporting Holman's view that ''Prince Charles's consort repertory marks the true beginning of the English Baroque''.'