Baroque Instrumental Award

Purcell
The Complete Fantazias
Fretwork
Harmonia Mundi F HMU90 7502

It’s nearly a decade and a half since the superb viol consort Fretwork recorded Purcell’s complete Fantazias – a Recording of the Month back in 1995. With a slightly different line-up, their new version is better still. “In this new recording they bring a stronger sense of the linear progression of the music, helped by slightly quicker tempi,” Julie Anne Sadie wrote in September’s Gramophone. “Purcell’s remarkable Fantazias – out of sync with their time, never widely circulated or acknowledged in his day, yet works of true genius – are definitely worth revisiting.”