There has been an increasing interest in William Lawes's consort music over the last few years, an entirely justifiable state of affairs which is to be broadly welcomed. Lawes is arguably the most versatile, personal and profound English composer of instrumental music between the Byrd/Gibbons generation and Purcell's consummate Fantasias. The catalogue can now boast a healthy cross-section of his finest works – especially with this important premiere recording of Lawes's most popular collection of pieces – though one should not pretend that his output is consistently of the finest quality; it is strikingly variable at times. His experimental setts for one or two violins and bass are cases in point: refined and inspirational one moment, strangely dull and raw the next. The Royall Consort is an altogether more obviously stylized and courtly collection, dance-oriented with a few extensive Fantasy and Pavan movements but, by and large, suites containing recreational movements of a refined and radiantly clear disposition. That is not to say that originality is sparingly employed (not a strain could be by anyone but Lawes) but Lawes moulds his ideas within gracious and compact structures and not grand contrapuntal ones, such as one observes in the five- and six-part music. Maybe this is why these 66 movements in ten suites were so popular in their day, disseminated far and wide. The other reason is surely the quality of the part-writing which, even if not consistently exquisite, is on a high plane and makes each of the six parts a pleasure to hear. There is, in retrospect, another riveting aspect to these works. They seemed to have started out life as four-part works (two trebles, tenor, bass) before Lawes astutely re-scored them in the early 1630s for two violins, two bass viols and two theorbos. The basic texture remains four-part but the composer brings to these pieces a rich and opulent mixed consort, a flexibility typical of Lawes's sensitivity for sonority (demonstrated, too, in his use of the organ in the 'trio' collections) and his readiness to respond to new tastes in concertante writing for violins, continuo practices and 'breakinge' bass viols.
The Purcell Quartet's Lawes recording follows on from an equally enterprising and substantial project, Biber's Harmonia artificioso (11/94), another fine and neglected collection of works whose recording celebrated 350 years since Biber's birth. Lawes died a brave and dashing cavalier at the Siege of Chester in 1645 and so an excuse for another remembrance: a tragically early death of a flawed genius, one who, uniquely for the relatively sober consort tradition in which he operated, displayed a volatile and romantic musical temperament within the extraordinarily cultivated ambience of Charles I's court. How far one goes in expressing the intense rhetoric without distorting the elegant sophistication of the genre is a challenge which any group must face. The Purcell Quartet have a remarkable affinity for both the whimsical and robust sides of Lawes's nature; the endearing charm and warmth of the music is heard in the splendid Suite No. 7 in A minor. There is an innate sense of decorum in the graceful lilt of the first Aire in the Third Suite and they characterize the energetic Aire I and rustic Morriss in Suite No. 6 (very Purcellian) with a delightful savoir faire. This is all comfortable home territory of which they are past masters.
Less consistently compelling is their handling of those movements where Lawes is not primarily concerned with chirpy amateur viol players (no disrespect to Jenkins) but for the sake of chamber music and the profound effect it can impart. The fleetingly respectful nuances which the Purcell Quartet give the Pavan of Suite No. 1 and the first Aire of Suite No. 5 are just too cursory for the stature of the music. The sinuous and tactile lines of Suite No. 2's potentially devastating Pavan are certainly engaging here (the theorbo playing is wonderful) but so often the allusions, feints and tensions in the music – where the lines are literally climbing on top of each other – are not sustained or sufficiently explored, just dipped into. If it seems as though I am splitting hairs in a recording containing some outstanding consort playing (a few intonation blips aside), it is only because the best of this music needs more time, more exaggeration of rhythmic features, a more quixotic and personal expression. Suite No. 6 with its bell-like Fantasy is too clean and geometrical: I want to hear a special angle on this oddly-fashioned movement. All that said, let me leave you with the overriding impression: fine music, fine playing (the second disc is especially good) but sometimes Brahms is not far away and we need to hear him.'