The Harp Consort is an international Early Music

Early music

Early music is generally understood as comprising all music from the earliest times up to the Renaissance. However, today this term has come to include "any music for which a historically appropriate style of performance must be reconstructed on the basis of surviving scores, treatises,...

 ensemble directed by Andrew Lawrence-King

Andrew Lawrence-King

Andrew Lawrence-King is a harpist and early music specialist, and is currently the director of The Harp Consort...

, specialising in Baroque Opera, early dance

Historical dance

Historical dance is a collective term covering a wide variety of dance types from the past as they are danced in the present....

-music, and historical World Music

World music

World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...

.

The Harp Consort excels at improvisation within the distinct styles of baroque

Baroque music

Baroque music describes a style of Western Classical music approximately extending from 1600 to 1760. This era follows the Renaissance and was followed in turn by the Classical era...

, renaissance

Renaissance music

Renaissance music is European music written during the Renaissance. Defining the beginning of the musical era is difficult, given that its defining characteristics were adopted only gradually; musicologists have placed its beginnings from as early as 1300 to as late as the 1470s.Literally meaning...

 and medieval music

Medieval music

Medieval music is Western music written during the Middle Ages. This era begins with the fall of the Roman Empire and ends sometime in the early fifteenth century...

. The group takes its inspiration from the 17th-century harp consort

Consort of instruments

A consort of instruments was a phrase used in England during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to indicate an instrumental ensemble. These could be of the same or a variety of instruments. Consort music enjoyed considerable popularity at court and in households of the wealthy in the...

 formed in England at the court of Charles I

Charles I of England

Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...

: in contrast to the homogeneous string orchestra

Orchestra

An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...

 (also formed at this time), the Consorte brought together diverse types of solo instruments – harp

Harp

The harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...

, lutes, keyboards

Keyboard instrument

A keyboard instrument is a musical instrument which is played using a musical keyboard. The most common of these is the piano. Other widely used keyboard instruments include organs of various types as well as other mechanical, electromechanical and electronic instruments...

, strings

String instrument

A string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones...

 – and voices, to create colourful new combinations in the fashion of the day. Like the 17th-century Consorte, The Harp Consort is formed around the accompanying instruments of the basso continuo and brings together an international team of musicians who create a rich variety of timbres.

Repertoire

Although continuo-players have a written bass-line, they must improvise harmonies and melodic figures on different instruments and in the appropriate style for the period and country. The Harp Consort takes continuo as a model for all kinds of performance, combining the spontaneity of improvisation with careful attention to the particular colours of each repertoire.

The Harp Consort's programmes range from medieval drama and solo songs to baroque opera, from new works for early instruments to exuberantly danced suites. The ensemble's stage-shows of 17th-century Spanish dances, early Irish planxties, and German baroque dances have delighted audiences around the world.

CDs and Awards

The Harp Consort's debut CD, Luz y norte (17th century dance music from Spain and South America) was a worldwide hit, gaining a Diapason d’Or in France, Record of the Year from Amadeus magazine in Italy, and topping the classical charts for five weeks in Australia.

The ensemble's recordings on DHM include 'Carolan's Harp’; ‘Italian Concerto’ [Best Early Music CD, German Phonographic Academy]; the medieval ‘Ludus Danielis’; and La púrpura de la rosa

La púrpura de la rosa

La púrpura de la rosa is an opera in one act, composed by Tomás de Torrejón y Velasco to a Spanish libretto by Pedro Calderón de la Barca, the last great writer of the Spanish Golden Age. It is the first known opera to be composed and performed in the Americas and is Torrejón y Velasco's only...

[Noah Greenberg Award], the first New World opera, given in Lima, Peru in 1701. The ensemble has also recorded Lawes for Berlin Classics and Purcell

Henry Purcell

Henry Purcell – 21 November 1695), was an English organist and Baroque composer of secular and sacred music. Although Purcell incorporated Italian and French stylistic elements into his compositions, his legacy was a uniquely English form of Baroque music...

 for Astrée Auvidis, and formed the continuo band for Andrew Lawrence-King's recording of Handel

HANDEL

HANDEL was the code-name for the UK's National Attack Warning System in the Cold War. It consisted of a small console consisting of two microphones, lights and gauges. The reason behind this was to provide a back-up if anything failed....

's ‘Almira’ [American Handel Society CD of the year], for Vivaldi's ‘Four Seasons’ with the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra and for ‘Fire-Water’: Spanish renaissance ensalada

Ensalada (music)

The ensalada is a genre of polyphonic secular music mixing languages and dialects and nonsensical quodlibets.The term is known mainly through a publication, Las Ensaladas de Flecha Prague by Mateo Flecha the younger, that contains six long four-part vocal compositions by his uncle Mateo Flecha...

s with The King's Singers.

The Harp Consort now records exclusively for Harmonia Mundi USA. Their chart-topping first release was Missa Mexicana: festive polyphony and popular dances from 17th-century Mexico (The Times

The Times

The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

(London) CD of the Year). Their second CD, Miracles (songs by Gautier de Coincy, 13th -century Prior of Vic) won the Dutch "Edison" award: it was also Gramophone Magazine's Editor's Choice & London Telegraph CD of the Year. Their latest recording is Arte de Fantasía: tientos, chanson

Chanson

A chanson is in general any lyric-driven French song, usually polyphonic and secular. A singer specialising in chansons is known as a "chanteur" or "chanteuse" ; a collection of chansons, especially from the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, is also known as a chansonnier.-Chanson de geste:The...

s & dances of the Spanish Golden Age.

External links

• CDs featuring The Harp Consort