Ferrabosco Lessons for 1, 2 & 3 Viols Richard Boothby (lyra viol), Asako Morikawa (viola da gamba) Signum Classics SIGCD757 53:54 mins
Alfonso Ferrabosco the Younger is a composer more often heard of than heard, so this album offers a welcome opportunity to encounter some of his lesser-known solo instrumental music. Born in Greenwich in 1575, Ferrabosco was the son of the celebrated Italian musician Alfonso Ferrabosco the Elder. Alfonso junior was left behind under the care of one of Elizabeth I’s courtiers when his parents left London for Italy in 1578, never to return.
Although influenced by continental European models, Ferrabosco’s music is decidedly English – not least because of his connection with the theatre and with the playwright Ben Johnson in particular, for whom he wrote music for plays and masques. Theatrical elements are central to Richard Boothby’s performance of 13 movements from Ferrabosco’s 1609 Lessons for 1, 2 and 3 Viols. In two of them (tracks 4 and 5) he is joined by Asako Morikawa on viola da gamba. Boothby’s instrument is the lyra viol – a small bass viol, greatly prized by contemporaries for its ability to vibrate untouched strings and for its association with the lyre of ancient Greece.
The preludes and dance numbers (allemandes, galliards and pavanes) are played with vigour and stateliness, and with just the right amount of rustic edge. Boothby also brings out the melancholic quality of Ferrabosco’s music – a style that was highly fashionable in late-Elizabethan and early-Jacobean England. Similarities between the ‘Almaine’ on track 7 and John Dowland’s ‘Flow my tears’ are unmistakeable. The recorded sound from St Mary Magdalene Church in Sherborne is clear, if a little dry.
John-Pierre Joyce