Aktion	Zweigstelle	Standorte	Status	Frist	Vorbestellungen
Vorbestellen	Zweigstelle: 02., Engerthstr. 197/5	Standorte: CD.01 Purc	Status: Verfügbar	Frist:	Vorbestellungen: 0
Vorbestellen	Zweigstelle: 07., Urban-Loritz-Pl. 2a	Standorte: CD.01B Purc / College 5a - Szene	Status: Verfügbar	Frist:	Vorbestellungen: 0
Vorbestellen	Zweigstelle: 19., Billrothstr. 32	Standorte: CD.01B Purc	Status: Verfügbar	Frist:	Vorbestellungen: 0
Vorbestellen	Zweigstelle: 20., Pappenheimg. 10-16	Standorte: CD.01 Purcell	Status: Verfügbar	Frist:	Vorbestellungen: 0

Enth.:

1. Fantasia upon one note

3 Fanastias in 3 parts:

2. Fantasia I

3. Fantasia II

4. Fantasia III

3 Fantasias in 4 parts:

5. Fantasia IV, June 10 1680

6. Fantasia V, June 11 1680

7. Fantasia VI, June 14 1680

8. In Nomine in 6 parts

3 Fantasias in 4 parts:

9. Fantasia VII, June 19 1680

10. Fantasia VIII, June 22 1680

11. Fantasia IX, June 23 1680

3 Fantasias in 4 parts:

12. Fantasia X, June 30 1680

13. Fantasia XI, August 18 1680

14. Fantasia XII, August 31 1680

15. In Nomine in 7 parts

The Fantazia for consort of viols is one of the glories of English music, and this unique repertoire, spreading over nearly two centuries, represents the loftiest and most perfect kind of instrumental chamber music written in Europe before the era of the classical string quartet. Between the early sixteenth and the late seventeenth century hundreds of such “Fancies” appeared, and the greatest masters of the age - Byrd, Gibbons, Lawes, Jenkins, Locke and many others produced masterpieces of the kind. But in the face of the victorious progress of “the new-fangled violin”, the Fantazia grew rapidly out of fashion, to be replaced by the Dance Suite or the Sonata: the Restoration of 1660 gave the signal to the invasion of continental music, above all French, which enjoyed the exclusive favour of Charles II. The admirable set of Fancies by Matthew Locke published in that very year, 1660, was the last of its kind to find a publisher. It was Purcell’s immediate model. Purcell’s fifteen Fantazias have come down to us as a manuscript kept at the British Museum, most of whose pieces are dated. As they would not have aroused any interest at the time, the young composer did not even attempt to have them published, and they only appeared in print, edited by Peter Warlock, in 1927! This unique collection of pieces of from three to seven parts, a true “sum” of polyphonic thinking, to which only Bach’s Musical Offering and Art of Fugue may be compared, are the product, incredible as it may seem, of a very young composer of twenty-one at the beginning of his all too-short career. Written during the summer of 1680, they bring two centuries of uninterrupted instrumental tradition in England to a crowning conclusion. Indeed, Purcell must have been aware that his endeavours were as out-of-date, and thus as transcendental and unselfish as Bach’s writing the Art of Fugue some seventy years later. In the manuscript just mentioned are to be found three Fantazias of three parts, nine (plus a fragmentary tenth) of four parts, most accurately dated and written in close succession between the 10th June and the 31st August 1680, sometimes succeeding each other at only one day’s interval, one of five parts, one of six and one of seven. These pieces are short, none of them exceeding a hundred bars in common time. They each consist of two to five episodes, contrasting in mood and tempo. Let us set apart at once the two pieces in six and seven parts: they are In Nomines. This was a peculiar form of the Fantazia, based on a cantus firmus in long notes around which the other instruments weave their counterpoints. The cantus is the plainsong Gloria tibi Trinitas according to the Sarum rite. The Tudor composer John Taverner had written one of his most masterly Masses on that tune, and the passage in the Benedictus setting of the words In nomine, featuring the entire Cantus, was especially admired and gave rise to a number of transcriptions. This enticed other composers to try their hand at similar, but this time purely instrumental settings, and thus the genre of the In Nomine was born, of which the two by Purcell are the latest in existence before Peter Maxwell Davies revived the genre in our own time. The very strict rules applying to the In Nomine result in norms differing from those found in Purcell’s remaining Fantazias. Their idiom is more austere, more archaic, their tempo remains invariable, and the permanent presence of the Cantus precludes the homophonic episodes of transition found elsewhere. However, each of them breaks down into three sections, featuring as many themes, whose polyphonic fabric is successively confronted to the Cantus. The only harmonic audacities to be found (though they were not audacious at that time) are the familiar false relations due to the coexistence of the ascending and descending shape of the melodic minor scale. Purcell’s In Nomine of seven parts surpasses its neighbour of six parts both in size and quality of inspiration.