Hyperion’s English Orpheus series continues its valuable mission with this two-disc set containing the complete trio sonatas by one of the most distinguished native English composers of the eighteenth century. Twelve of them were published as a set in 1747, perhaps rather late for music of this sort, but then eighteenth-century England, while not the musical wasteland it has often been painted, certainly long maintained a conservative attachment to the tradition of Corelli, and Boyce himself was not exactly among the most forward-looking of English composers. What he was, though, was an extremely competent and professional musician, a fact which is clearly evidenced by the considerable commercial and critical success of these trios, which included on the list of their subscribers the names of Handel, Arne, Pepusch and Maurice Greene. They may well have been impressed by the variety Boyce demonstrates; reminders (inevitably) of Corelli, Purcell and Handel rub shoulders here with those of German and French music and occasionally even sixteenth-century polyphony. But as Peter Holman points out, the ‘English’ movements are the ones which hold most attraction; in these we find that mixture of polite but never over-fussy elegance that makes English eighteenth-century music so unmistakable and somehow so evocative of its time. It may not always be memorable or profound, but it never loses its poise and is often more than capable of capturing the heart.
Fifteen sonatas for two violins and continuo can, nevertheless, be a long haul for listeners and players alike, but Holman solves this problem at a stroke by adopting an orchestral scoring for alternative sonatas in which (basically) those passages marked piano are allocated to the trio sonata group, while the rest are played by an orchestra of just over a dozen players. It is a practice known to have been adopted in Boyce’s day (such adaptability almost certainly contributed to the popularity of the trios among England’s amateur orchestras), and in musical terms it is attractive and utterly convincing.
The performances of both the small and large ensembles here show intelligence and an unfailing sense of style, and if the ‘solo’ trios suffer occasionally from struggling intonation, the sound in general is one which is both bright and pleasing to the ear. I cannot think of too many record companies who would be as willing as Hyperion to issue a set like this, and the result – if not a must-have in purely musical terms – is yet another treasurable document of England’s musical heritage.'