Reimagining Elizabethan songs

Peter Warlock: Elizabethan Songs

In 1926 Peter Warlock published his 3-volume work "Elizabethan Songs, that were originally composed for one voice to sing and four stringed instruments to accompany, transcribed from 16th and early 17th century MSS". The songs are by well-known (William Byrd) or obscure (William Wigthorp, Nicholas Strogers) composers, and some are anonymous. Warlock contributes impressive scholarship to the project, sifting through a variety of manuscripts from the British Museum and Christ Church, Oxford that date from the first half of Queen Elizabeth's reign (1553-1578). These works, Warlock notes, are written not just in five parts (as madrigals), but are clearly designed for a solo singer with instrumental accompaniment. "The vocal line is sharply differentiated from the accompanying viol parts," he says, "which are of a definitely instrumental character."

Rather than a consort of viols, Warlock very skillfully adapts the instrumental music for a string quartet. The result is a kind of neo-classical sound, common enough in the 1920s. Notably, Warlock treats this music with respect and love, adapting it to modern times with a sensitivity to Elizabethan norms and a knowledge of their conventions unusual so many decades before full-blown Historical Informed Practice became widely understood & performed.

These are gorgeous songs, in many cases based on poetry of very high quality. They're beautifully sung by soprano Rebecca Lea, mezzo Ciara Hendrick and tenor David de Winter, all of whom are completely attuned to this music. I was especially impressed with the Christmas songs, "Sweet Was The Song The Virgin Sang" and "Born Is The Babe". This is no surprise to those of us who love Warlock's "Bethlehem Down" as one of the greatest of Christmas songs. The members of the Piatti Quartet bring their own sensitivity to the project, walking the fine line between imitating their particular member of the viol consort on the one hand, and bringing the full power of Beethoven's string quartet on the other. Of course the singers and the instrumentalists are following Warlock's path, and as they do, the success of the project is assured.

In this music the 20th century composer imagines himself in a Tudor sound world, finding it a congenial place to be, and he spreads out his tools and happily works away. Warlock never seemed to fit in his own time; at least he was never happy there for long (or allowed his life companions much happiness either). By an effort of will, he brings the world of 16th century England into the 20th century, and in this marvellous recording a hundred years later, into the 21st.