Perhaps it's an example of a characteristically Dutch sense of humor to have a group called the Gents performing music by the Gentlemen of the Chapel Royal, the court composers of sixteenth century England. But when the group gets down to the music, it's all business. The Gents are not an English but a Dutch ensemble, formed of veterans of one of Holland's top boys' choirs. They have put together an exceptionally fine program that gets into the meat of the English tradition without giving it the layers of reverence that the ...
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Perhaps it's an example of a characteristically Dutch sense of humor to have a group called the Gents performing music by the Gentlemen of the Chapel Royal, the court composers of sixteenth century England. But when the group gets down to the music, it's all business. The Gents are not an English but a Dutch ensemble, formed of veterans of one of Holland's top boys' choirs. They have put together an exceptionally fine program that gets into the meat of the English tradition without giving it the layers of reverence that the music can take on when done by English cathedral choirs who have been at it for centuries. As would a day of music heard by Henry VIII or Elizabeth I, the program mixes sacred polyphony with a few madrigals, organ pieces, and viol works -- and in so doing illuminates the ways in which these traditions shaped each other. The inclusion of a work like Robert White's comparatively little-heard Christe, qui lux es et dies, a version for viols of an originally vocal sacred piece, shows...
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