Fretwork

Phantom, for four viols Op.61. 1993

Phantom for 4 viols was completed at the end of January 1993, just after I received the commission from the South Bank Centre for Fretwork. Before that I never had any experience of writing for old instruments and practically did not know them very well. I even treated them with some suspicion and therefore it was a challenge for me to write this composition. Also, I never knew the music by Purcell very well, because his music was played in Russia very rarely. I remember only the few fragments from Dido & Aeneas, to which we listened in the course of History of Music at the Moscow Conservatory. However, Fretwork were so kind as to send me the score and tape including their performance of Fantazias and In Nomines which I listened to with great interest and pleasure. It gave me some knowledge of Purcell’s music and some ideas on how it is possible to write for this ensemble.

For my composition I used a very short quotation from Purcell’s Fantazia 6 (Z 737). It is just a small cadence which appears like some phantom of Purcell or like some image of his time, and penetrates gradually into my own musical material.

Commissioned by The South Bank Centre. First performed 7th March 1995, The Purcell Room, London.

Published by Boosey & Hawkes, London