Twilight of the Renaissance Fantasia

Cover of the album being discussed (photograph by Thomas Wunsch, courtesy of Jensen Artists)

At the end of last week, ECM New Series released its latest album of music led by violinist John Holloway. The title of the album is Fantazias; and it presents the collection of the twelve polyphonic fantasias (in three or four parts) composed by Henry Purcell in the summer of 1680. The fantasia is not bound to any particular formal structure; and many, if not most, published fantasias may have originated from the composer’s explorations into improvisation. Purcell’s catalog consists of a wide diversity of both vocal and instrumental music, so it probably is not surprising that at least some of his efforts may have emerged from improvisation.

In his capacity as violinist, Holloway leads a quartet of contemporary instruments. Departing from the usual instrumentation of a string quartet, he performs with two violists (Monika Baer and Renate Steinmann) and cellist Martin Zeller. Holloway probably chose this instrumentation as a contemporary reflection on a consort of viols.

The result is a listening experience that can probably be taken as an approximation of how this music would have been perceived in the seventeenth century. However, it is unlikely that all twelve of these compositions would have been performed for a listening audience during that particular period of music history. More likely the publication served as a resource for selections that would be performed as “background music” for some form of social gathering. (This was probably also the case for some, if not all, of the instrumental compositions of Johann Sebastian Bach, including organ music that would have been played while the congregation enters the church.)

Fortunately, we now live in an age of “digital listening,” when playing an album from beginning to end is no longer the favored practice. Individual listeners can invent their own ways of experiencing this album, with or without the useful program notes that Holloway provides in the accompanying booklet. (It is worth noting that the Amazon.com MP3 version includes a PDF of those notes.) Personally, I still prefer beginning-to-end listening, because it helps me develop familiarity with music that I hope I shall subsequently encounter in a concert performance; but I have no desire to proselytize my own listening practices!