Renaissance Consort Music

From viols to crumhorns and back again

The Concert (1623) by Gerard van Honthorst depicts a classic “broken consort,” which you’ll get to listen to below.

If my previous posts on music have not been without effect, you already know that instrumental music flourished in the Renaissance. Today I’d like explore the wide range of ensemble (also called “consort”) music that flourished in the High Renaissance, from c. 1550-1650. We’ll explore everything from the viol consorts of misty England to the bright recorders playing on the shores of Italy.

(Please note that the voiceover contains musical excerpts of all the pieces featured in this post!)

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it

The most common type of consort was simply a mixture of popular instruments, known in England as the “broken consort” — broken because made up of different types of instruments, instead of (say) four or five viols, all with the same timbre.

Instruments in a broken consort were as disparate as the players available. But the staple instruments of the broken consort usually were: viola da gamba, lutes, recorders or flutes, and perhaps a violin or two.

Last summer I participated in a Renaissance music festival in Pennsylvania, and one of the classes was on the broken consort. I got to play a big bass lute (on loan from another participant), as well as enjoy our professors give a concert of their own.

Here you can see a pretty typical broken consort, with the instruments being (from left to right): bass viol, bandora (wire-strung lute relative), alto lute, cittern (wire- strung mandolin relative), bass flute, and violin.

Here’s a fuller broken consort, again with the bandora and cittern, but this time with five viols, no wind instrument, and a “virginal” or mini harpsichord, performing a piece by Holborne:

But consort composition wasn’t restricted to England: it flourished in the Lowlands and Germanies as well. Samuel Scheidt (1587-1654), a court organist, is one such figure. His Ludi Musici of 1621 represents a fusion of Italian and Lutheran polyphonic musical styles, as well as a transition point between late Renaissance and Baroque styles. Here’s the L’Acheron ensemble again: