Luogo e data di registrazione		Chapel Knole, Kent (Inghilterra) - settembre 1980
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Producer / Engineer		Gerd Berg / Neville Boyling
	Prima Edizione LP		EMI Electrola "Reflexe" - 1C 069-46 404 - (1 lp) - durata 49' 26" - (p) 1982 - Analogico
	Prima Edizione CD		EMI "Classics" - CDM 7 63143 2 - (1 cd) - durata 49' 27" - (c) 1989 - ADD
	Edizione CD		EMI "Classics" - 8 26526 2 - (1 cd) - durata 49' 26" - (c) 2000 - ADD
	Note		-

Until recently it was thought that Matthew Locke was born around 1630 but, on cleaning the portrait of him in the University School ol Music in Oxford in 1960 it was discovered that it was dated 1662 and his age as 40. It can reasonably be assumed, therefore, that he was born in 1622, in or near Exeter in Devon, where he was educated at the Chathedral Choir School. In 1638 he carved his name into the organ screen in the Cathedral, which can still be seen to this day. Matthew Locke came to London around 1646 and was in “the Low Countreys" in 1648. He began composing music for viol consorts in the early 1650s. His music for the Masque Cupid and Death was performed in 1653 and, in collaboration with Henry Lawes, he wrote part of the music for the first English opera The Siege of Rhodes by Sir William Davenant, performed in 1656 and in which he sang the part of the Admiral. He produced more stage music, notably in the semi-opera Psyche, based on Moliére’s play of the same name with music by Lully, but his incidental music to "straight" stage plays like Shakespeare’s The Tempest was generally more successful. At the same time as all this activity he was busy composing church music, notably anthems for the Anglican liturgy, and also that for which he is most famed, his music for string consort. He did not achieve an official position until the Restoration in 1660 and he became ‘Composer of Ordinary’ to King Charles II. He died in 1677. Locke was a man of bold and origirial genius but also of choleric temper and violent disposition, berating anyone who opposed him with a tongue-lashing and not hesitating to rush into print in similar vein. He fulminates against foreigners in n characteristic xenophobic outburst, “I have never seen any Forain Instrumental composition (a few French Corants excepted) worthy an Englishman’s transcribing.” Locke had a slightly schizophrenic attitude to the prevailing currents of musical change. On one side he was avant garde, on the other conservative. He was the last English composer whose music lor viols was a substantial part of his output; his cornett and sackbut music was amongst the last to be written in England, yet his compositions show great innovatory genius and Locke could have become an operatic genius if public taste had created sufficient demand for it. Like Lawes he berates the Italians, yet copies them. c.f. Pepys’ Diary, 21st February 1660, “with them (Locke and Purcell, father or uncle of Henry Purcell) to the Coffee House... a variety of brave Italian and Spanish Songs and a canon for 8 voices which Mr. Locke has lately made." Of the vocal music by Locke on this record much of it will be new to a modern listener, and most of it is recorded for the first time. Only five separate solo songs definitely to be by Locke survived, all of which are recorded on this disc: 1. To a Lady singing to herself at the Thames’ side (Sing forth sweet Cherubin) is the only solo song in Locke’s own autograph. The words are by William Habington (1634). It is the only song of the five single songs to have been published in a modern edition. 2. Wrong not your lovely eyes was published in Choice Ayres, Songs and Dialogues, in the 1675 edition. The words are anonymous. 3. Lucinda, winke or vaile those eyes is found in manuscript in Lambeth Palace Library. The continuo part is written on a stave meant for lute tabulature and the copyist has crossed out the top line of the sixline-lute-stave to adapt it for the more modern continuo bass-line. The words are anonymous. 4. The Despondent Lover’s Song (Dearest Syren) also exists only in manuscript in the British Library. The words are by Thomas Stanley. 5. Urania fo Parthenissa (in a soft vision of the night) exists in manuscript and was published in Choice Ayres, Songs and Dialogues, 1679. The song represents Locke in his most “affective” vein. This and The Despondent Lover's Song are perhaps his best songs. The song My lodging it is on the cold ground is of doubtful authenticity. The song has beeh attributed by various authorities to Locke but there is ho direct evidehce for it. The words come from Davenant’s The Rivals, seen by Pepys in 1664. The tune already occured in 1665 as a violin tune in The Dancing Master, in Music’s Delight on the Cittern (1666), and in Apollo’s Banquet 1669) entitled I prithee love turn to me. In 1667 it was sung by Moll Davis who “perfrm’d so charmingly that not long after, it Rais’d her from her Bed on the Cold Ground to a Bed Royal” - in the following year she became the King’s mistress and he took her oft the stage. In 1672 Nell Gwyn who was competing for the King’s favour, parodied the song in Howvard’s All Mistaken when, in the passage where she should sing the words "And that which troubles me most is the unkindness of my dear..." for the word “unkindness” she substituted the word “fatness” - an unkindness of the tirst water! There is no original bass to the tune so we have added what we hope is a suitable one. Orpheus with his Lute and A Pastoral (O Pan, great Pan) are originally three-part songs, published in Playtord's Catch the Catch Can (1667). I an indebted to Peter Holman for allowing me to use his transcriptions of these. Only one of Locke’s three Dialogue Songs is suitable for tenor and soprano. This is the Dialogue between Thersis and Dorinda (When Death shall part us from these Kids). It appeared in many editions of Choice Ayres and Dialogues between 1675 and l687 and was famous enough to survive into the eighteenth century for publication in Thesaurus Musicus (1745). Several manuscript version exist for different combinations of voices: two trebles, treble and tenor, treble and bass, and tenor and bass. One of the manuscripts is in the hand of John Blow who obviously considered it worth copying. Sir John Hawkins in his General History refers to this dialogue as ranking, together with Dr. Blow’s Go perjured man, among the best vocal compositions of the time. In the version we are using for this performance both voices are written in the treble clef but the lower voice reverts to the bass clef in the duet section, so it obviously was intended for a tenor. Nigel Rogers It seems almost certain that the “Music for His Maiesty’s Sagbutts and Cornetts” was written for King Charles’ coronation procession through London in 1661. In the manuscript in the British Library, “Compositions for Broken and Whole Consorts, of two, three, fower, five and six parts, made by Matthew Locke, Composer in Ordinary to · His Majesty, Charles the Second", six pieces (one incomplete) for cornetts and sackbuts appear, entitled “For His Majesty’s Sagbutts and Cornetts, composed by Mr. Locke for the Restoration of King Charles the Second“, and above the first piece, an “ayre”, there is a note instructing the reader to turn on a few pages for “the remainder pan of the music for Kings Charles’ entry into London.” There are four miscellanious pieces in this collection, a six part pavan, two canons also in six parts, and a saraband in four parts. The saraband appears also as a movement in one of the “Concerts for four parts“, and is indeed more typical of Locke’s writing for strings with its angular leaps. The other two pieces are in five parts, an ayre, and the first half of a corantt. And are the first two dances in the suite that survives in part books in the Fitzwilliam Library in Cambridge entitled “Five part things for the Cornetts“. Unfortunately the alto part book is missing, therefore the alto sackbut part has had to be reconstructed throughout, except for the first almand (called ayre in the British Library score) and the first half of the first corantt, which can be taken from the B.L. score. In the final almand only the treble and bass lines are complete, the second cornett and second sackbut parts having only a few notes each, so I have had to reconstruct all three inner parts. Theresa Caudle
EMI Electrola "Reflexe"