It is hard to imagine how English string consort Phantasm could improve on its prior release, the excellent Avie disc Four Temperaments. Perhaps Phantasm also realized this, for the follow-up, Avie's John Jenkins: Five-Part Consorts, represents a slight shift of gears in approach from Four Temperaments and yet manages to continue the thread of historic argument begun with the earlier album. Whereas Four Temperaments focused on four composers from the time of William Byrd, including Byrd himself, John Jenkins comes from a ...
Read More
It is hard to imagine how English string consort Phantasm could improve on its prior release, the excellent Avie disc Four Temperaments. Perhaps Phantasm also realized this, for the follow-up, Avie's John Jenkins: Five-Part Consorts, represents a slight shift of gears in approach from Four Temperaments and yet manages to continue the thread of historic argument begun with the earlier album. Whereas Four Temperaments focused on four composers from the time of William Byrd, including Byrd himself, John Jenkins comes from a slightly later phase in the development of English consort music. Regarded as a major figure in his own time, greater appreciation of Jenkins' strengths as a composer have been hindered to some extent by the sheer bulk of his surviving output of more than 800 pieces. While certain works of Jenkins are popular with string consort groups and often anthologized, whole discs devoted to his output remain relatively rare. One can find no evidence that any of the five-part consorts featured...
Read Less