A rare opportunity to hear this ravishing repertoire.

The programme includes works almost never heard in professional performance in Ireland –fantasias, divisions, In Nomines, pavans and other dances for viol consort by William Byrd, John Dowland, Orlando Gibbons, John Jenkins, William Lawes, Matthew Locke, Henry Purcell, Thomas Tomkins and others, together with keyboard works by these composers.

One of Europe’s longest established early music ensembles Spirit of Gambo (the name is taken from a work by the 17th century Scottish soldier, composer and viol virtuoso Tobias Hume) are four exuberant professionals –Thomas Baeté, Freek Borstlap, Gesina Liedmeier and Ivanka Neeleman –who have been making internationally-acclaimed performances and prize-winning recordings of work for viol consort for more than twenty-five years. They will be accompanied on chamber organ by Malcolm Proud, one of Ireland’s best loved early music specialists.

Bringing the viola da gamba to modern audiences:
Irish audiences may have encountered the bass viola da gamba (or ‘viol’) as a solo instrument in performances of J.S. Bach’s Passions or his sixth Brandenburg Concerto, but the instrument is almost never heard here in the rich and beautiful repertoire of chamber music written for ensembles (or “consorts”)of viols of different sizes –treble, tenor and bass. This includes a large body of work composed over a century and a half that ended (in England) with Purcell’s very beautiful fantasias from 1680 for three, four, five, sixor seven viols, written by the young composer at a time when the viol had been almost fully eclipsed by the louder, brighter and more versatile instruments of the violin family.While the bass viol flourished as a solo instrument in the Courts of Europe with virtuoso works by Forqueray, Marais, Abeland others, English composers almost uniquely produced a body of work for domestic performance, then –as now –played by enthusiastic amateurs sometimes supported by professional performers and teachers.

The viol in Ireland
One such amateur was Narcissus Marsh who kept up the habit he established as a student in Oxford of regular viol consort sessions when he moved to Dublin to take up the position of Provost of Trinity College in 1679. His personal manuscript collection of viol consort music now held in the Library he established in the grounds of St Patrick’s Cathedral remains an important original source of this repertoire. Works from the collection at Marsh’s Library form part of Spirit of Gambo’s programme, including dances from Archbishop Marsh’s Lyra-Viol Book –a manuscript collection of works by Lawes, Jenkins and others written in tablature (more commonly used by lutanists), and requiring a typical string tunings to create chordal effects.