This double-CD set, a budget reissue of two 1990s releases by the Chicago-based ensemble the King's Noyse, captures a sound still relatively uncommon in performances of English music from the seventeenth century: the violin band. British art demonstrates the popularity of the violin during the period listeners instinctively associate with the soberer viol consort, and music of the sort heard here moved one writer of the age to state that the violin (whose origins are only slightly younger than those of the viol) offered ...
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This double-CD set, a budget reissue of two 1990s releases by the Chicago-based ensemble the King's Noyse, captures a sound still relatively uncommon in performances of English music from the seventeenth century: the violin band. British art demonstrates the popularity of the violin during the period listeners instinctively associate with the soberer viol consort, and music of the sort heard here moved one writer of the age to state that the violin (whose origins are only slightly younger than those of the viol) offered "High Priz'd Noise fit to make a man's Ear Glow, and fill his brains full of frisks." Frisks aside, the album offers upbeat little instrumental tunes with great titles like Trip and Go and Mr. Isaac's Maggot, with simple structures sometimes varied through elaboration in multiple iterations of a tune. The program is effectively broken up with entrancing solos for lute and cittern played by the great Paul O'Dette, and with other unusual instrumental pieces -- hear the bass violin, an...
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