Hingeston: Fantasy-Suites • Echo du Danube

The liner notes of this album give good context to the composer, John Hingeston, who lived in the 17th century, who may have studied with Gibbons in England. His consort music on this album combines violins with gambas and organ.

The recording has good sound with adequate stereo separation, with my preference listening on headphones.

For those interested in this period, it’s understandable why you might prefer Purcell. Too many of these, for me, felt stagnated, failing to do much within pedestrian harmonic progressions.

I can’t fault the Echo du Danube ensemble for unearthing these suites for us, nor can I fault their playing. But I ultimately found this release underwhelming from a musical perspective.

The Fantazia, track 26, contains a bit of ornamentation which dresses the fabric of this composition. But the fabrics, to use an analogy, are still rather plain, even with the décor of a well-placed brooch. I can’t say whether these would have been realized by a full consort of viols or if the use of violins was intentional, as a kind of broken-consort. The Pavan-Almande (track 16) is a good example: the music doesn’t seem to ultimately go far, save for the final cadence.

Clearly, Hingeston was familiar with the music of the day, and the Sarabande that follows the aforementioned Almande is rather striking for its rhythmic vitality. The Almande from the A minor suite (track 19) is among the strongest of the dances, forecasting a Purcellian style.

The liner notes paint that long inattention to Hingeston’s music as a kind of tragedy, and while this release I think will appeal to those interested in the period bookmarked by Gibbons and Byrd with Purcell, I can’t find myself coming back to these outside the context of a lecture upon the period’s harmonic development.

Nevertheless, props go to the ensemble for bringing it to light.