PURCELL: Fantasias for the Viols - Jordi Savall, Hesperion XX (Hybrid SACD)

Purcell’s fifteen Fantazias have come down to us as a manuscript kept at the British Museum, most of whose pieces are dated. As they would not have aroused any interest at the time, the young composer did not even attempt to have them published, and they only appeared in print, edited by Peter Warlock, in 1927! This unique collection of pieces of from three to seven parts, a true “sum” of polyphonic thinking, to which only Bach’s Musical Offering and Art of Fugue may be compared, are the product, incredible as it may seem, of a very young composer of twenty-one at the beginning of his all too-short career. Written during the summer of 1680, they bring two centuries of uninterrupted instrumental tradition in England to a crowning conclusion.

1. Fantasia Upon One Note 3’033

FANTASIAS IN 3 PARTS

2. Fantasia I 3’12

3. Fantasia II 2’37

4. Fantasia III 3’33

3 FANTASIAS IN 4 PARTS

5. Fantasia IV, June 10 1680 3’46

6. Fantasia V, June 11 1680 3’29

7. Fantasia VI, June 14 1680 4’00

8. In Nomine in 6 Parts 1’47

3 FANTASIAS IN 4 PARTS

9. Fantasia VII, June 19 1680 4’21

10. Fantasia VIII, June 22 1680 3’58

11. Fantasia IX, June 1680 5’03

3 FANTASIAS IN 4 PARTS

12. Fantasia X, June 30 1680 4’02

13. Fantasia XI, August 18 1680 3’05

14. Fantasia XII, August 31 1680 3’30

15. In Nomine in 7 Parts 3’44