The transformation of “low” source materials into “high” art occurs often in visual art of the 20th Century. But in music it happens much earlier, and this spirited disc focuses on a moment around 1600 when the spirited street calls of English tradesmen were given accompaniments for viol ensemble by William Cobbold, Richard Dering, Orlando Gibbons and Thomas Weelkes. Some of the same cries–advertisements as well as nuggets of street wisdom–are set by all the composers, achieving a variety that may be surprising. The five members of Theatre of Voices perform the cries and, on two occasions, apparently also whistle and play spoons to heighten the atmosphere created by their rough-and-ready (but not overdone) lower-class accents. The six members of Fretwork accompany with charm in addition to playing elegant, purely instrumental dance-based pieces by Dering and Gibbons. Harmonia Mundi’s vivid recording enhances the proceedings by sometimes having vocalists advance or recede, which further enlivens their interweaving throughout the left-to-right soundstage. A joy.
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