David Munrow and his Early Music Consort of London are the fountainhead of the English historically informed performance practice movement and a prime example of their work is this classic 1975 recording, The Art of the Netherlands. Among the exceptional young performers who went on to stellar careers are countertenor James Bowman and tenors Martyn Hill and Rogers Covey-Crump, and Christopher Hogwood, freshly down from Oxford, sits at the organ. But the key figure here is Munrow, the youthful polymath who combined ...
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David Munrow and his Early Music Consort of London are the fountainhead of the English historically informed performance practice movement and a prime example of their work is this classic 1975 recording, The Art of the Netherlands. Among the exceptional young performers who went on to stellar careers are countertenor James Bowman and tenors Martyn Hill and Rogers Covey-Crump, and Christopher Hogwood, freshly down from Oxford, sits at the organ. But the key figure here is Munrow, the youthful polymath who combined scholarship, musicianship, craftsmanship, and nearly endless enthusiasm in a singularly explosive blend. If a word like "explosive" seems unusual in context of early music that nevertheless was the effect these recordings had when they were originally issued. So fresh were Munrow's insights and so overwhelming his energy that these performances practically crackle. The discs are conveniently divided into one for secular songs and another of mass movements, so listeners can easily grasp the...
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