Broken Consort - The English Consort

The English Consort

As constituted during the time of Queen Elizabeth I (called an "Englisch consort" by Praetorius in 1618 (Edwards 2001)), and more recently a "mixed consort" or "consort-of-six" (Harwood 1978, 609–13), or a "Morley consort" (Sealey 2007)), it typically featured three plucked string instruments (lute, cittern, and bandora), two bowed instruments (treble viol or violin, and bass viol), and a recorder or transverse flute. Such consorts became quite popular during the Elizabethan era and often accompanied vocal songs.

Two manuscript sets of partbooks dating from 1588 and ca. 1590 are the earliest substantial sources of music for this consort. The earlier collection is known as the Walsingham Consort Books, and contains 34 pieces, including twelve by Richard Allison and seven by Daniel Bachiler, who likely wrote and owned these books (Edwards 1974). The later set of partbooks was copied by Matthew Holmes, and is known both as the Holmes Consort Books and as the Cambridge Consort Books, because they are deposited in the University Library at Cambridge (Harwood 1978, 211). There are also individual parts from consorts found in various other manuscripts, most notably the "Browne bandora book", which contains the bandora parts to 35 consort pieces (Harwood 1978, 211). There are also twenty-five surviving compositions for this type of consort by several composers in a collection published by Thomas Morley (1599/1611). There were a number of other consort compositions published by Philip Rosseter (1609), and some vocal music accompanied by this specific consort was published in collections such as William Leighton's The Teares and Lamentatacions of a Sorrowfull Soule (1614) and the Psalms of David in Metre (1599) by Richard Allison (Brown 1981, 111).

Sidney Beck made the first modern edition of Morley's collection and had a professional consort in New York state. Julian Bream was a pioneer in reviving the consort. James Tyler did much to popularise the playing of these consorts by getting music students at the University of Southern California to play all six instruments. The Baltimore Consort, an American ensemble, specializes in the performance of music for broken consort.