• Never assume that because viol music, by its nature, is soft, it is therefore safe and gentle. On Consorts Flat and Sharp (Linn), their second album of music by the English composer Matthew Locke (c1621-77), the viol consort Phantasm, directed by Laurence Dreyfus, demonstrate Locke’s striking originality and his tendency to swerve from the mainstream, freely breaking rules of harmony and taste. Born in Exeter, he wrote music for the London stage and spent a turbulent time in Oxford as part of Charles II’s court, which had upped sticks en masse to escape the great plague.
Our ears may not be attuned to Locke’s radicalism, but the more you listen, the more his stylistic adventures draw you in. Phantasm, joined by Elizabeth Kenny on theorbo, here complete the Little Consort of Three Parts (1656), for treble, tenor and bass viols, and groups suites from that collection with three from the Flats Consort for My Cousin Kemble. You won’t hear this music done better.
• On A Room of Her Own (Chandos), a follow-up to their 2019 album Her Voice (piano trios by Farrenc, Beach and Clarke), the Neave Trio play works by Lili Boulanger (1893-1918), Cécile Chaminade (1857-1944), Germaine Tailleferre (1892-1983) and Ethel Smyth (1858-1944), composers whose names, until recently, were better known than their music.
Smyth’s Trio in D minor has big-boned, Brahms-like richness, especially in the drama of the finale. Boulanger’s D’un matin de printemps and D’un soir triste are usually heard as orchestral works but adapt well to smaller forces. Chaminade’s early Trio No 1, Op 11 is fluent and airborne. Taillerferre’s Trio, revised at the end of her long life, encapsulates her stylistic variety. These chamber works are still not in the mainstream. The Neave Trio – Anna Williams (violin), Mikhail Veslov (cello) and Eri Nakamura (piano) – put their case eloquently.
• Don’t miss Radio 3’s recorded broadcast of the new horn concerto by Gavin Higgins, written for Ben Goldscheider, which attracted widespread praise at its premiere earlier this month. Goldscheider is joined by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, conductor Jaime Martin. Tuesday, 7.30pm/BBC Sounds.
