Phantasm, Wigmore Hall, London, review: The viol’s even sound has a plain, bleached quality

Members of Phantasm performed music for viol consort by Orlando Gibbons

Phantasm: The sound of a consort of four viols is more moving than that of a string quartet

Why should the sound of a consort of four viols be more moving than that of a string quartet? It goes against all logic. With its flat back, and played like a Middle-Eastern spike-fiddle, the viol was the primitive precursor of the violin, and its timbre is completely different: while the violin’s sound can be luxuriously calibrated for warmth, vibrato, and ebbs and flows of volume, the viol’s even sound has a plain, bleached quality; perfectly-baked white bread to the violin’s multi-seed loaf.

To listen to Phantasm playing Orlando Gibbons at the Wigmore was to realise that, at its best, Elizabethan viol-music was all about restraint, grace, and subtle shifts in mood – but also that those qualities didn’t preclude boisterousness when the occasion demanded. Gibbons was a supreme master of the art of counterpoint, letting his intricate patterns develop until the air was thick with contending melodic lines.

Breathing as one single instrument, this trail-blazing ensemble started with a Fantasia for two voices, and gradually built up to pieces for six: playing without bar-lines, they came to grief at one particularly dense thicket of part-writing, but after restarting brought the piece elegantly home. The great Canadian pianist Glenn Gould praised this music as representing an ‘imperishable, distinctly English brand of conservatism’. This kind of conservatism we could do with more of.