Sit Fast (Viol Consort)

Founded: England

Elizabethan music for viol consort represents a miraculous balance, with complexity in the writing and pleasure in the music. Although its name refers to that Golden Age of English music, The Sit Fast Consort perform music from many periods and repertoires, including not only the inexhaustible wealth of English music by composers such as Dowland, Lawes, Holborne and Ferrabosco, but also the none the less prodigious music of France, by Lejeune, Du Caurroy, Moulinié, Charpentier and others, and of course that of J.S. Bach, whose Art of Fugue (BWV 1080) is one of the mainstays of their repertoire. And because they are also musicians of their time, with a love for contemporary or improvised music as well, Sit Fast intend to make their contribution to new works of the present day, an initiative that is both legitimate and rich in prospects, at a time when many composers have shown, and continue to show, an interest in the sounds of early music.

Members of Sit fast Viol cConsort are: Atsushi Sakaï, Isabelle Saint Yves, Thomas de Pierrefeu, Josh Cheatham.

Source: Harmonia Mundi Website
Contributed by Aryeh Oron (September 2011)

Sit Fast: Short History | Recordings of Instrumental Works

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