Recorded during the 2020 lockdown, Richard Boothby explores the solo and duo viol music of Alfonso Ferrabosco the younger. The lyra viol and its music is one of the last undiscovered gems of music, and Alfonso Ferrabosco is its greatest exponent. It is in the category of ‘hard to define, easy to recognise’: it is at once an instrument, a style of playing and a genre of instrumental music, and, while not exclusively English, by far the largest part of its repertory is from these isles.

A composer favoured by Queen Elizabeth I and James I, Ferrabosco also wrote music for stage works by playwright Ben Jonson, some of which would by heard in performance at Shakespeare’s Globe. Added to this he was a renowned player of the viol – a visiting court musician declaring that there was no player of ‘La lyre’ in Italy: “who was fit to be compared with the great ‘Farabosco d’Angleterre’.”

Richard Boothby has been playing the viol ever since David Fallows handed him a tenor viol in 1977. After further study with Nikolaus Harnoncourt in Salzburg, he helped to found The Purcell Quartet in 1984 and Fretwork in 1985. He has endeavoured to enrich the viol-consort repertory with new music from today’s finest composers, from Elvis Costello to George Benjamin, from Alexander Goehr to Nico Muhly.