Barefoot Chamber Concerts (“an enterprise noted for both its quality and informality” – San Francisco Classical Voice) presents really good music in the right acoustic and without the formality of most classical music events.
Barefoot’s annual viol consort spectacular, presented by The Barefoot All-Stars (Wendy Gillespie, Peter Hallifax, Julie Jeffrey, Shira Kammen, David Morris, and Lynn Tetenbaum), will showcase the music of the great Orlando Gibbons.
Gibbons, the most famous scion of a very well-known musical family, was employed at the Court of James I and Prince Charles (later Charles I). He was prolific and versatile; writing sacred music, secular songs, keyboard music and consort music. In his time, he was considered the heir to the music of Byrd and Bull, and in later times, he became legendary when Glenn Gould, in an interview, cited him as Gould's "favorite composer". In the world of the classic Jacobean viol consorts, he is simply without peer.
You will hear all six of Gibbons' legendary fantasies in 6 parts, as well as other fantasies and Pavans in 3, 4 and 5 parts, including several of the extraordinarily complex and very rarely played fantasies for the "great dooble bass" viol, Bass viol, and treble viol.
These "great dooble bass" fantasies, in 3 and 4 parts, combine an unusually low bass register with an unusually high treble register, achieving a remarkable separation of parts. They are also compositionally complex, with frequent changes of rhythmic texture. They contrast fabulously with the more traditional sinuous texture of the bigger consort groups, where the parts deliberately blend in and mix together.
You can hear all this in the lovely acoustic of St. Mary Magdalen Church Magdalen Hall (formerly the parish hall). More information at BarefootChamberConcerts.com.