John Ward - Consort Music for five and six Viols

John WARD (CA. 1589-1638)

Consort music for five and six viols

Phantasm

Reviews

JOHN WARD (ca. 1589-1638) has to put up with a name of such unadorned plainness that it is hard to believe he was a leading light in Jacobean viol consort music. Though wrongly demeaned on occasion today as a mere "amateur" composer (because he didn't hold a court or ecclesiastic appointment), connoisseurs in the seventeenth century were in no doubt about his stature. Writing almost forty years after his death in 1676, Thomas Mace names ‘Mr JOHN Ward' as one of those ‘diverse famous Englishmen' of ‘very great eminence and worth' who composed fantasies ‘as fit monuments, and patterns for sober and wise posterity, worthy to be imitated and practiced'. To judge from the far flung transmission of his instrumental works in private

collections, WARD was indeed imitated and practiced for a good long while, though in 1676 only Purcell's final chapter in imitative consort music remained to be written some four years later after a period of intense study, perhaps even composed in response to Mace's ‘monumental' vision of the old English viol fantasy, filled with its ‘pathetical stories' and ‘divine raptures'.

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Fanfare

Barry Brenesal

JOHN WARD was an attorney by profession in England during the first half of the 17th century, and a very successful one. Beyond that, little is known of him, save what he wrote in the dedication of his only published score, The First Set of English Madrigals to 3, 4, 5, and 6 parts apt both for Viols and Voyces. There, he thanked the wealthy, politically astute Sir Henry Fanshawe, "the Honorable Gentleman, and my very good Maister," in whose employ he spent many years. It was apparently Fanshawe who defended Ward's works from critical attack, as the composer claimed they had "fed time with fulnesse, and bred many Censors, more curious than judiciall." Ward's subject matter was serious, even severe-much against the prevailing spirit of the period-and his music eschewed for the most part the chromaticism that had lately come into fashion in Italy as an expressive device, and spread to England from there.

The consort music on this album-twenty fantasias, and three In Nomines-wasn't published during Ward's lifetime. Instead, it circulated in manuscript. Like the madrigals, however, it is largely free of the wit and fancy common to much secular music of the period, including the fantasias of Gibbons. WARD emphasizes somber moods, and canonical procedures in long, flowing, metrically regular lines. Contributing to a sense of gradually unfolding melody is the composer's frequent recourse to postponing cadences as long as possible through contrapuntal, harmonic, and rhythmic manipulation. When exceptions to lyrical predominance occur, as in the shorter, dance-like phrases that define the Fantasias No. 5 a5 and No. 8 a5, WARD is still likely to add lengthy, contrasting sections in his regular manner. This hopefully doesn't create an impression of aural monotony in his music, for that's not the case. The fantasias are fortunate to possess in abundance the usual virtues of their period and place: thematic sweetness, seemingly effortless counterpoint, and a gift for graceful rhythmic variety.

Phantasm has been warmly received in these pages repeatedly in the past. Brian Robins noted of their release of consort material by Byrd and Mico (Fanfare 21:5), "Whereas Fretwork adopted a considered poised interpretative style, Phantasm is considerably more expressive and excitable, bowing more deeply into the strings..." I think this expresses well a salient attribute of Phantasm's recorded performances. The combination of the consort's attention to rhythmic detail and textural breadth (that bowing!) gives Ward's fantasias an animation that only enhances their attractiveness, without palliating their grave line.

It's fortunate that the quality of these performances are outstanding, as there's no direct competition currently to this release that aims at presenting all the composer's consort music for five and six viols. The Rose Consort offers a selection on cpo 999 928, along with several of Ward's "ayres" for two bass viols and organ, but I admit to finding their sound rather wiry if spirited, and not easily enjoyable as a longterm listening experience.

Chalk up another success for Phantasm, then. They do a real service for Ward's consort music on this album, and it's well worth the price.

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Gramophone

Julie Anne Sadie

Beyond the occasional madrigal, we haven't heard much of JOHN Ward's music on CD. As in its own day, it has until now remained the preserve of amateurs. WARD was a Jacobean "gentleman" who published a single collection of madrigals in 1613 and left a body of consort music for four to six viols along with ayres for two bass viols, surviving in numerous 17th-century manuscripts, which Thomas Mace referred to as "very great eminence and worth".

Phantasm, in recording the works for five and six viols, has given us what we may hope is the first of two recordings of Ward's complete instrumental music. As an ensemble, the members of Phantasm perform with authority and exceptional musical awareness. They achieve a remarkable blend of instrumental timbres and breathe as one with their bows. The results on this disc are stunning; but, equally, the recording successfully captures individual voices, so much so that the listener feels almost part of the ensemble.

If not of the first rank, Ward's consort music is nevertheless well crafted and genuinely engaging. Most movements are broadly in three contrasting sections, the textures now imitative, then homophonic, often antiphonal (VdGS3 and DvGS7) and on occasion rhetorical (VdGS12). His themes are cleverly syncopated more often than not; the tonality deftly shifts between major and minor. His treatment of the cantus firmus in the three In nominees is masterful. But, perhaps best of all, are the chromatic passages positioned for maximum affect (VdGS2, 3, 7, 9), which leave the listener longing for more.

This Record was nominated for the Gramophone Awards 2010