CCMusic.com

The increasing popularity of consort music and lute songs at the 16th-century English court gave rise to a specific type of song, usually sung by a boy soprano together with a consort of 3 to 5 viols. These 'consort songs' flourished particularly during the reigns of Elizabeth I (1558-1603) and her son James I (1603-1625). Especially attractive examples of such songs are gathered and arranged here, and sung by the Dutch soprano Klaartje van Veldhoven, who specializes in early and Baroque music, having regularly sung as a soloist with many of Europe's foremost early-music ensembles and conductors such as Sigiswald Kuijken and Ton Koopman. This is the fourth album on Brilliant Classics by the Dutch-based recorder quintet Seldom Sene. Having come from all over Europe to study at the Amsterdam Conservatoire, they draw upon the particularly rich performing tradition for recorder music established in that country during the 1960s by the late Frans Bruggen. In fact they take their name from the last track on this album, Seldom Sene by Tye: a short work full of beauty, precision and striking rhythmic complexity that the musicians felt captured the essence of their vision, which is to perform unique and compelling repertoire at a standard that is seldom seen and heard.