"This was Charivari Agréable’s first recording for Signum. The hook on which this recital of renaissance instrumental music and songs hangs is the music associated with the four wives of King Philip II of Spain (1527-1593). This gives the ensemble an opportunity to offer us a wide variety of music tenuously linked together....

In fairness this repertoire has been chewed over by various musicians in the last few years - for example, none better then Jordi Savall on say his ‘El Cancionero de Medinaceli’ (Astrée Auvidis E8764). Here the emphasis is on the instrumental adaptation of vocal and keyboard works. This, coupled with some delightful and beautiful musicianship, make this a worthwhile CD to add to your collection."

Gary Higginson

"In his portraits, Philip II of Spain (1527-98) appears as a dour Hapsburg monarch, dressed all in black. Yet he presided over the second half of Spain’s golden age including an artistic renaissance that led to Cervantes in literature, El Greco and Velasquez in painting.

In music too, late 16th-century Spain was rich and cosmopolitan, taking in influences from across the Hapsburg Empire. In Philip of Spain (Signum SIGCD006) the equally cosmopolitan, Oxford-based consort charivari agréable have put together a wide-ranging programme of music from that era to mark the 400th anniversary of the king’s death.

Playing an astonishing assortment of instruments, including the vihuela or Spanish lute, they offer a range of short pieces that, although immediately unfamiliar, will make connections with anyone used to John Dowland’s contemporaneous work.

The playing is exquisite, the recording immaculate, the variety fascinating. Philip had an English connection, with an inauspicious marriage to Mary I and the launch of the hapless Armada, and the consort manage to include a couple of home-grown pieces, including the virtuosic echo-viol gem A Soldiers Resolution by Tobias Hume."

"There is a growing trend among thinking musicians to treat music of the past more creatively. I find myself increasingly reviewing recordings of arrangements of music adapted and interpreted in the ways musicians of the day would have taken for granted, but requiring of musicians today a greater self-confidence based on a greater knowledge of the historical and social contexts for the music than ever before. This represents for me a new and very exciting phase of the early music revival, one that enriches the existing repertory and can bring us ever closer to the spirit of the original music.

Charivari agréable, founded by the keyboard player Kah-Ming Ng in 1993, has produced here an imaginative and polished recording of sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century music that effectively conjures up the musical life and times of the court of Philip II of Spain. Each of the three regular members of the ensemble has contributed tasteful and plausible arrangements of works, relying to a great extent on Susanne Heinrich’s deeply evocative viol playing and Lynda Sayce’s stylish and accomplished vihuela accompaniments.

The selections include solos for Ng, Heinrich and Sayce, arrangements of popular songs (listeners will recognise "Une jeune fillette" in tracks 27 and 28, popularised by the film Tous les matins du monde) and instrumental diferencias (variations). Highlights for me include Valderrábano’s Discantar sobre un punto (with plucked bass viol and vihuela), Henestrosa’s Diferencias sobre Guardame las Vacas (played on a wonderfully chuffy organ with vihuela), Milán’s songs (beautifully sung by Rodrigo del Pozo and Nicki Kennedy), Hume’s A soldier’s resolution (the echoing viols brilliantly played and recorded) and Ferrabosco’s Spanish Pavan (with bass viol and lute). Bravo!"

"…exquisite performances of music (some imaginatively arranged) from Philip II’s court at the Escorial, along with several contemporary Spanish-influenced English and French works. The instrumental pieces are particularly successful; Caurroy’s ’Fanatsias sur jeune fillette’ and Cabezon’s version of ’Doulce memoire’ are among the highlights of a highly intelligent programme."

"Highly recommended. Over 70 minutes, for your money, of Spanish music of the mid to late 16th-century, plus some French and English to show the international tastes of the Hapsburg Court, with instrumental fantasias and divisions, laced with songs. There is some imaginative tinkering - viol consorts out of songs or organ pieces, dialogues conjured out of Ortiz and Hume, one of Ortiz’s ’La Spagna’ recercadas is plucked, with chords, by solo viol, and the whole ensemble jam a lovely folksy version of ’Une jeune fillette…’ the arrangements work well because they use appropriate instruments and play with great insight. The viols have a beautiful mellow, reedy tone, not too heavy at the bass end… The singing is marvellous. Del Pozo has a very high tenor, with the easiest of top As, and a richness of tone which never gets heavy. Nicki Kennedy’s soprano is very focused and bell-like, her ornamentation neatly done. Cabezon, father and son, are played on an organ whose crystal tone matches the playing."