The four hundredth anniversary of the birth of the composer John Jenkins is celebrated this year by Jordi Savall and Hesperion XX with a recording of his little-known six-part consort music. Jenkins was relatively unknown, having spent most of his life quietly in the employ of wealthy landowners in Cambridgeshire and Norfolk up to the Restoration, when he took up a court appointment as a lutenist. His pupil-patrons Sir Nicholas and Roger L'Estrange and Roger North were, however, much quoted figures of the period.
Until now his music has remained the provenance of amateur players and their societies; in anticipation of the centenary, the Viola de Gamba Society of Great Britain devoted a meeting to Jenkins's music—the three-part fantasia-suites, the four-part consort fantasias and airs—and, thanks to the energetic efforts of such scholars as Andrew Ashbee, modern editions are beginning to appear. Not surprisingly, Jenkins is appallingly badly represented in the record catalogues, but certainly we have every right to expect the appearance of recordings by groups such as Fretwork this year. So, with the momentum of occasion, Jenkins seems destined for a wider airing and perhaps greater popularity.
Jordi Savall's attention to English consort music has blossomed in recent years, having earlier patronized the solo lyra viol repertory and later, with his ensemble Hesperion XX, taken up the masterpieces of Dowland and Purcell. This recording presents Jenkins's complete extant works in six parts, with the exception of a twelfth fantasia, which exists only in a secondary source and may not be authentic. The pairs of Pavans and In Nomines, along with the tenth and eleventh fantasias, are judged to be early works, dating from the 1620s or 1630s, and they are among the most beautifully crafted of the pieces on this disc.
Hesperion XX are at their best when expressing the spirit of melancholy pervading so much of Jenkins's music; especially successful are the subdued beginnings, the sustained lines, counterbalanced by the clarity of quick-moving passages, the 'cathedral boom' of their climaxes and the delicacy with which they close. But there is a quintessential Englishness which is possibly lacking in these performances. By this I mean a sense of teamwork—equals joining together for the pleasure of all—as well as transparent ensemble textures and an underlying openness of spirit.
Hesperion XX belongs to Jordi Savall. Collectors will have noticed that the personnel around him change from one disc to the next as he introduces a new generation of professional players of different nationalities to the scene. Savall leads from the treble viol and whether by the sheer force of his artistic persona or the machinations of sound engineering it is his voice within the ensemble that most often commands our ear. On this occasion, Hesperion XX play on unmatched original instruments spanning 150 years of instrument making, only one of which is English—and late at that (Barak Norman, 1697). They also employ swells as a feature of their fundamental bow stroke, a predictability inconsistent with the English manner. The accompaniment of an organ rather than a lute tends to smudge the textures, adding too much weight to the lowest part and contributing to a polarization between top and bottom.
Many will find the resonance and pacing of these performances very much to their liking. The appearance last year of Fretwork's Virgin Classics disc (8/91) devoted to Lawes signalled the increasingly high profile of English consort music and it is both inevitable and proper that a variety of approaches should be represented on disc. It is, after all, a great luxury these days to have the opportunity to sample the subtle delights of Jenkins's Bell Pavan or his characterful tenth fantasy (stocked with tunes, lively rhythms and interesting harmony) without mastering the viol oneself and gathering together, five other equally committed kindred spirits, which is what the music was for in the first place.'