The presentation of this disc sells short what is really an innovative and beautifully performed program of seventeenth century English music. The connection of the music to Oxford, while it's there, is various, tenuous, not explored in any systematic way, and not particularly illuminative of the music. And director Kah-Ming Ng breezily terms the contents a "random sampling of seventeenth century English devotional chamber music" when it is in fact quite intelligently selected and sequenced. Leaving this matter aside, the ...
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The presentation of this disc sells short what is really an innovative and beautifully performed program of seventeenth century English music. The connection of the music to Oxford, while it's there, is various, tenuous, not explored in any systematic way, and not particularly illuminative of the music. And director Kah-Ming Ng breezily terms the contents a "random sampling of seventeenth century English devotional chamber music" when it is in fact quite intelligently selected and sequenced. Leaving this matter aside, the disc is wonderful. What's distinctive about the music is not that it was related to Oxford but that it was "newly composed after the Italian way," to quote a publication of music by William Child, one of the earlier composers represented. The Italian way was to use a basso continuo, realized here by a small group led by Ng on a harpsichord or chamber organ, plus a group of interlocking melody lines, sung here by three male solo voices. The result begins to approach trio sonata...
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