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Batchelars
Delight
English Consort
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Batchelars Delight are a group of friends that had been making Early Music
together in Leicestershire for many years. The ensemble was first formed in 1990 and the
members in the picture played together since 1994 to when it disbanded in 1999. The
repertoire consists of popular song and dance from theatre and court entertainments from
the time of Elizabeth I and Shakespeare including music by Morley, Dowland, Byrd and
Campion for viols, recorders, lute, cittern and bandora.
Click here for a music clip (508kbytes) Excerpt
Instruments of the English Consort
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Treble and bass viols are stringed instruments resembling a violin and a cello. The
treble viol however is also played whilst held between the legs like the cello. |
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The lute is a guitar like instrument with a pear shaped body and a distinctive folded
back peg box. It has from 6 to 10 pairs known as courses of strings. Originally these were
gut but modern reproductions tend to use nylon or wire wound which keep their tuning. |
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A cittern is a small plucked or strummed instrument that has 4 courses of wire
strings. It is similar in sound to a modern mandolin or banjo. |
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A bandora is a large stringed instrument also with wire strings with the bass strings
being longer than the treble. It has as metal frets arranged in a non parallel fashion to
accommodate the differences in string length. |
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The recorder needs no introduction as it has been rediscovered in the 20th century.
Various size instruments are used as appropriate but the consort music mainly features the
larger instruments. |
Music for the English Consort
There are a number of pieces that survive arranged for this group of instruments,
mostly in the consort books detailed below.
- Thomas Morley's First Booke of Consort Lessons of which there were 2 printings, one from
1599 and one from 1611.
- Philip Rosseter's Lessons for Consort of 1609.
- The Cambridge Consort Books of circa 1595, also known as the Matthew Holme Consort
Books, are manuscript consort books for lute and other instruments copied by Matthew
Holmes.
- Walsingham consort manuscripts of 1588.
For more details about this type of ensemble see Steven Hendricks' English Consort Music page.
For an example of typical programmes see
Composers for the English Consort
Brief biographies of some of the composers for this ensemble can be found on HNH
International's web site (hnh), here are the
links :-
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