Fretwork

A reviewer can pay few compliments more genuine than to return to a given recording again and again, for sheer pleasure. Having taken in 76 minutes of music at one sitting the first time round, that’s just what I’ve been doing with Fretwork’s latest offering…..Lovers of polyphony of all sorts, in all its abstraction and all its sensuousness, have something special in store….Enough said: hats off.

Fabrice Fitch: The Gramophone March 2002 (Editor’s Choice)

Fifteen years on, Fretwork remain the world’s leading viol consort, and if this disc for new label Harmonia Mundi is anything to go by, we’re in for many years of electrifying playing. Outstanding.”

Andrew Clarke, The Independent, 12 January 2002

Fretwork are at their absolute finest in this demanding and exciting repertoire. Outrageously good playing.”

Anna Picard, The Independent on Sunday, 13 January 2002

But I do find something remarkably inspiring and instructive in what Fretwork have done here. It is not so much that they are marvellously skilled, more that they have such range of sounds and particularly of articulation techniques. These performances really do have a huge variety of colour.

Plainly the musicians have given a lot of deep musical thought to these pieces, hitting just the right mood for each.

David Fallows, Early Music, November 2002