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Chelys, vol. 7 (1977), article 3 `Vyolls and organ’. Certainly the fantasies were made for viols, but what of the organ? We know beyond doubt that the seventeenth century required an organ to play with the viol consort, but we do not know exactly when they took to it. The date c.1620 has been suggested, which is ten years too late for these fantasies as first composed, but there could have been some experimental trend-setting by 1610, particularly at Court. The two extant organ books, 16 being ‘late’, cannot settle the point. Sceptics may say that Tomkins, who lived until 1656, was quoting from an imperfect memory, but I prefer to believe that he, being an organist himself and old enough to have known all the Age-of-Plenty people, knew what he was talking about. ‘Liberty of compass’. At the meeting, I showed a diagram which gave the compass of each part of the six demonstrated fantasies, and of six four-part madrigals typical of the period. Those of the fantasies were distinctly wider, and this gave a representative check on Tomkins’s words. Trademarks There are a few ‘trademarks’ in the fantasies. Many of Alfonso II’s characteristics are not exclusive to him, but their sum amounts to a distinctive image which consort players recognise. They were inherited and tellingly exploited by the leader of the second generation, John Jenkins, in whose music it is easy to find ‘bits of Alfonso’. Before discussing characteristics, the point must be made that a mere recital of them cannot pass for advocacy. Alfonso’s claim can be proved only in the consort room, to which place readers of these remarks will, I hope, adjourn. The melodic line of the parts is sometimes singable, but often actively instrumental. The harmony is not unusual; there are normal resolutions of 7-6, 6-5 and 4-3 and, as in Fantasy 12, the occasional [51] rub of parallel seconds or sevenths at closes. Cadences (in Morley’s sense) are found at the top, in the middle and at the bottom of the texture. When heard at the bottom, as in Fantasy 23, they seem to indicate gravity. The musical language is not quite so eloquent as that of Ward, Jenkins and Lawes, which is to be expected, since Alfonso II was an architect (like his father) rather than a tone-painter. However, there are many instances of elements of musical language such as the ‘pleasurable-longing’ 6-5 major, as in Fantasy 13, and the ‘grieving’ 6-5 minor, powerful in places, as in Fantasy 12. That emotional mixture of sharp third and flat sixth is there, but it occurs rather in melodic sequences, as in Fantasy 13, than in chords. As for mode and key, some of the pieces, particularly those in Aeolian/Aminor like Fantasy 7, are well grounded in the previous century, with few accidentals and much alternation between tonic minor and relative major. Elsewhere there are contrasts between tonic minor and tonic major which are characteristic less of the modes than of the future classical key-system; they carry formal and emotional value, as in Fantasy 23. In Fantasy 21 there is a 16 Och MSS. 436, 1004.
Chelys, vol. 7 (1977), article 3 tour de force of keys, with an expedition to the far side of the key-circle and a safe return. 17 The rhythm is distinctive, with plain things on the beat and fancy things off the beat, as in Jenkins, and especially effective when there is a lot of imitation; imitations should be audible across the consort. Alfonso II’s groups of quavers have a determined onward drive, giving an impression of bubbling energy and a copious head of steam. The form is more varied and ingenious than that of Alfonso II’s contemporaries, and this, added to his other qualities, is what really earns him his ‘gold medal’. The subjects are distinctive. There are single and double fugues. The four parts enter, sometimes at regular intervals of time, sometimes as stretto-pairs a long way apart. When the fantasy is in progress, the consort is kept well informed. One trademark is the long dominant pedal, usually in the bass, which announces that a corner is about to be turned or that the end is nigh. Endings are often adorned with a tonic pedal, long held by bass, alto or treble while the other parts weave a complicated coda which often takes the form of a highly-decorated perfect (plagal) close. There are fantasies in several contrasting and overlapping sections, as in the older-styled Fantasy 7, or, what seems to have been new in 1610, two sections, as in Fantasies 12, 13 and 23. Some fantasies--and this was not a new device-have one subject, as in Fantasy 21, or two subjects running [52] throughout. That, and the use of tonic major and minor keys in juxtaposition, conferred a measure of unity on a fantasy so constructed. But the greatest measure of unity is in Fantasy 20. The first of its three sections is a fugue on subject A and a countersubject; the second section is a double fugue on subjects B1 and B2. The third section is a kind of Jupiter Symphony in which all the aforesaid elements reappear-straight, augmented and in stretto-and are summed up before the final close: It appears as though such a degree of formal ingenuity and recapitulation was quite new in the England of 1610, and possibly remains unique in the 17 In discussion, one opinion, somewhat critical of Alfonso II’s outward and inward modulations, was heard.
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