Fantazias

"Purcellians should snap this up."
- International Record Review

"An outstanding, beautifully recorded disc, then, that should give much pleasure."
- The Strad

London Baroque and BIS have over the years enjoyed a very successful collaboration which has so far resulted in eight highly acclaimed releases. Three of these are included in the present BIS Baroque series: Fantazias, Apothéoses and A Baroque Celebration.

In this programme, which includes works for from three up to seven instruments, London Baroque give us the final word in the two-hundred-year history of a disappearing form. Purcell's string fantasias are an intensely personal distillation of the old style, in an age where most people (like Purcell's main employer, Charles II) preferred music they could tap their foot to. To a certain degree, the composer has left the choice of instruments up to the performers: indeed, some of these works are almost as often heard on recorders - or even brass instruments - as on viols nowadays. On the present recording, London Baroque make an eloquent case for the violin family - with results that pleased the reviewers greatly.