This concert is a part of the 2022 Limerick Early Music Festival.

THE DUBLIN VIOLS

Sarah Groser
Lucy Robinson
Mark Wilkes
Andrew Robinson
Jenny Robinson (recorder)

The Dublin Viols play the legacy of an extraordinary flowering of domestic music that began in the 16th century and expanded, particularly in England, through the 17th century.

Several successive monarchs kept their private bands of viol players, and one (Charles I) even took part as a player. Private citizens who could afford it also bought instruments and hired a music master who taught the family and servants to play. In some cases, they would also compose the music, made to measure. Families would acquire manuscript copies of each other’s favourite pieces. The style began as an extension of the vocal music of the church and court, and the viol consort developed a fugal genre of its own called the Fantasia, more complex than the dances and airs that made up the rest of the repertoire.

Do This At Home uses another instrument popular for domestic use, the recorder, which blends and agrees well with the viols. These instruments remained in use right through the 18th century but got the chop, along with the harpsichord and lute, around the time of the French Revolution. No doubt they were seen to be keeping the wrong company.

Limerick Early Music Festival is a member of the Irish Early Music Network.