This project was set up in 2016 to record the rich but largely neglected repertoire of the English pre-Restoration verse anthem. It brings together three of the UK's leading period performance ensembles and a huge quantity of recent research to convey the extraordinary richness of this peculiarly English type of music. Inspired by the ideas of the Reformation, it attracted several of the greatest composers of the period: William Byrd, Orlando Gibbons and Thomas Tomkins, to name just three.
Following the wide acclaim that greeted our first two CDs, released in 2017 and 2020 ...
In Chains of Gold, Volume 1: the complete consort anthems of Orlando Gibbons (‘Critic’s Choice’ for 2017 in Gramophone Magazine)
This is the finest recording of this quintessentially English music that we are likely to have, and I urge everyone to start collecting these volumes as they appear over the coming years ... a real treat (Early Music Review, February 2018)
In Chains of Gold, Volume 2: William Byrd to Edmund Hooper: Psalms and Royal Anthems:
This is music-making of the highest calibre, steeped in emotional intelligence and affective balance (Gramophone, September 2020)
a really fascinating programme ... a very, very special recording (Radio 3 Record Review, June 2020)
... we want to complete this series with a third CD to be recorded this September. This time the programme includes two large anthems by Thomas Tomkins, both partially incomplete and specially reconstructed for this recording. 'Know you not' was written for the funeral of Prince Henry in 1612, an event of national catastrophe that inspired countless artistic outpourings of lamentation, of which this is surely the most magnificent. The other, 'O God the heathen are come into thine inheritance', is the longest in the verse anthem idiom that has so far come to light, a strikingly emotional reaction to the horror and disruption of natural order wrought by the Civil War. Alongside are several anthems on a more intimate scale, such as John Amner’s poignant 'Consider, all ye passers', Richard Nicholson’s 'When Jesus sat at meat' and works by several other composers of the period, some of whose names are long forgotten.
Much of this music is being heard probably for the first time in over 400 years. Please help us to complete the funding of this very expensive project (£49,000 of which we have so far raised £39,000) and create access to a really fine but neglected repertoire.