The Tudors – Lo, Country Sports
Purcell Consort Of Voices
Label
Decca
Catalogue No.
4822562
Barcode
00028948225620
Format
1-CD
About

Another joyous anthology of verse and music from the expert, London-based ensembles of voices and viols who have already contributed several valuable reissues to ‘The Tudors’ series on Eloquence. ‘Lo, Country Sports’ takes its title from the madrigal by Thomas Weelkes, complemented by the pastoral poetry of Thomas Nashe and Edmund Bolton, among others. It was released by Argo in 1970 as part of a comprehensive series of ‘Elizabethan Life in Music, Song and Poetry’.

When making this LP, Grayston Burgess and the Purcell Consort of Voices employed the rustic accents that made a radical departure at the time from polite, sacred-style diction in this music. Indeed the secular music of composers such as Thomas Ravenscroft is still little known and even less recorded, which makes this first international CD issue all the more welcome.

In its revival of English nymphs and shepherds from the high Elizabethan era, this carefully planned album is more exuberant in tone than ‘I Love, alas’ (reissued on Eloquence 482 2570). However, there are small masterpieces such as ‘Farewell, sweet woods and mountains’ by Michael East, and almains of plaintive character played both on solo lute and by the Elizabethan Consort of Viols. The poetry is read by John Neville, who attained international fame through his starring role in Terry Gilliam’s epic ‘The Adventures of Baron Munchausen’.

TRACK LISTING / ARTISTS

THE TUDORS
Lo, Country Sports
Elizabethan Life in Music, Song and Poetry

ANONYMOUS: Almain
THOMAS TOMKINS: Adieu, ye city-prisoning towers
THOMAS WEELKES: Lo, country sports that seldom fades
BRETON: Shepherd and Shepherdess
MICHAEL EAST: Sweet muses, nymphs and shepherds sporting
YOUNG: The shepherd, Arsilius’s, repl
FARMER: O stay, sweet love
GILES FARNABY: Pearce did love fair Petronel
CAVENDISH: Down in a valley
NASHE: Spring, the sweet Spring
MICHAEL EAST: Thyrsis, sleepest thou?
JOHN RAVENSCROFT: Sing after, fellows
ANONYMOUS: The Wych
THOMAS WEELKES: Whilst youthful sports are lasting
BATESON: Come, follow me, fair nymphs
LODGE: Corydon’s Song
VAUTOR: Mother I will have a husband
THOMAS CAMPION: Jack and Joan
BENNET: The hunt is up
JOHN RAVENSCROFT: Tomorrow the fox will come to town
ROBERT JOHNSON: Alman
GILES FARNABY: Pearce did dance with Petronella
THOMAS WEELKES: Our country swains in the Morris Dance
BOLTON: A Canzon Pastora
MICHAEL EAST: Farewell, sweet woods and mountains

James Tyler, lute
John Neville, reader
Purcell Consort of Voices
Grayston Burgess, director

Recording information

Recording Producer: Michael Bremner
Balance Engineer: Stanley Goodall
Recording Location: St. John’s, Smith Square, London, UK, 1, 7, 8 October 1969 and 9 April 1970

Reviews

‘The performances are on the whole very enjoyable… The madrigals are sung very nicely… The more serious music is quite exquisite… It is an attractive record.’ Gramophone