ECM New Series Releases John Holloway Ensemble’s Recording of Purcell’s Fantazias
ECM New Series Releases
Henry Purcell | John Holloway
Fantazias
John Holloway, violin; Monika Baer, viola; Renate Steinmann, viola; Martin Zeller, violoncello
ECM New Series 2249
Release Date: September 22, 2023
Henry Purcell’s “fantazias” are regarded as some of the finest and most intricately wrought examples of the fantasia, due to their profound embrace of counterpoint and great command of the polyphonal techniques of the time. Composed in the summer of 1680 – a time when the fantasia was already considered old-fashioned and had been replaced by the sonata – Purcell’s “fantazias” turned out to be the very last ensemble fantasias to be published in England. As John Holloway notes in his detailed liner text contextualizing the three- and four-part works, “it is tempting in retrospect to see their brilliant distillation of the very best of Byrd, Lawes, Jenkins and Locke as a personal farewell to a kind of music, which in Purcell’s own chamber music would soon be superseded by sonatas”.
In this recording John Holloway and his ensemble – violists Monika Baer and Renate Steinmann as well as violoncellist Martin Zeller – excel at bringing to light the emotional nuance and technical complexity of the works in all their transparency and colorfulness, naturally emphasizing Purcell’s contrapuntal idiosyncrasies in the process. Holloway’s expansive studies of Purcell’s life and work are evident in this music, and the violinist discloses his great appreciation of the composer in the accompanying text, saying, “only just out of his teens, Purcell already shows his extraordinary ability, shared by few other composers of any era, to walk the fine line between joy and sorrow, to beautifully express the melancholy which was such a characteristic mood of his times; and all this within the strictest self-imposed disciplines of complex counterpoint.”
On the album, recorded at Zürich’s Radio Studio, Holloway and his ensemble approach Purcell’s fantasias No.1 through 12 with distinct and convincing interpretations that substantiate John Holloway’s suggestion that even J.S. Bach “would have been immensely proud to have composed this music, and had he encountered it, would certainly have acknowledged it as equal to his finest achievements in this art.”
The CD includes a booklet with liner notes by John Holloway.
A pioneer of modern Early Music and historically-informed performance practice, John Holloway has been a leading figure in chamber music and concertmastering of Renaissance and Baroque music for over five decades, with many distinguished recordings under his belt. He is the founder of the baroque ensemble L’Ecole d’Orphée and in 2001 became Musical Director of the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra, in addition to multiple other activities as teacher and instructor across Europe and the USA. Holloway made his ECM debut in 1999 with a recording of the Sonatae unarum fidium by J.H. Schmelzer and has recorded eight further albums – including this release – for the label since, with repertory spanning music of Heinrich Ignaz Franz Biber, Francesco Maria Veracini, J.S. Bach, Jean-Marie Leclair, John Dowland and more.