Reviewed by Steven Whitehead

Leading performers of 17th century music Fretwork, His Majestys Sagbutts and Cornetts (sic) and the Magdalena Consort (directed by Peter Harvey) combine forces under the artistic direction of William Hunt for this first complete recording of the consort anthems of Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625). Gibbons' music is one of the artistic glories of the Stuart period. Amongst his sacred compositions, verse anthems such as is "This the record of John" and "Behold, thou hast made my days" are acknowledged masterpieces, amongst the greatest in all English sacred music, but best known to most in their setting for choir and organ. Here they are presented together with an array of other great anthems, some of them scarcely known, in their more intricate and colourful versions for consort accompaniment. Following the instruction of such contemporary writers as Thomas Morley, these radical new performances place communication of the text at the forefront, seeking to rediscover the dramatic essence of the verse anthem that made it one of the most effective musical creations of the English Reformation. With the incisive declamatory skill of several leading period performers, they reveal the extraordinary rhetorical and poetic power of this music, as it might have been heard in the Chapel Royal and the private domestic chapels of early seventeenth century England. The music is lively and it would be wrong to praise either the vocalists or instrumentalists at the expense of the other as all add to the occasion. The words are, as expected from this time, either straight from the Bible - in English - or meditations on Biblical themes. If this review makes 'In Chains Of Gold' sound like a dry and dusty academic exercise this is far from the case because this is music to be sung in worship or listened to in grateful contemplation.

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