English consort music from the 16th and 17th century
In the 1530s the Bassano brothers of Venice were recommended to the court of King Henry VIII (1491-1547) as musicians, composers and instrument makers. The Bassanos founded a consort of five recorders, being joined in 1550 by Augustine Bassano (d.1604) to form a six-member consort that was manned principally by their offspring until the unification of wind consorts into one group in the 1630s.
The repertory of this ‘royal recorder consort’, which inspires this CD, consisted of fantasias as well as dances and instrumental arrangements of motets and madrigals. The consort, as Augustine Bassano specified in a document from 1564, was ‘bounden to give daily attendance upon the Queen's Majesty’. Consorts provided entertainment and music for a wide variety of court activities, and provided occupation for many professional musicians and composers.
Lindoro NL-3023, 2014
