Music & Art at the Court of Charles I

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Mark Levy & Concordia Paul Agnew and Christopher Wilson 

Music & Art at the Court of Charles I



Label: Metronome Recordings Ltd

Catalogue No: METCD 1038

Discs: 1


New for the #SaveOrazio campaign


Among the Artists to whom Charles I was patron were Rubens, Van Dyck and, less well known today. the Italian Orazio Gentileschi, one of the most elegant and lyrical painers of the 17th century. Orazio Lorni Gentileschi, born the son of a Florentine goldsmith in PIsa in 1563, went to Roem in his mid-teens and in about 1600 became a friend of Caravaggio. The impact of the acquaintance on his painting was profound. It was not until he was 63 years old and after periods in Genoa (1621-26) that Gentileschi came to England, where he spend the last twelve years of his life. IN London, as court painter for Charles I, his earlier Caravaggism was replaced by a more elegant and mannered style, well suited to the tastes of Charles and his court.


The artisic achievements of Charles's court were matched in ambition by the musical establishment he created. CHarles was an amateur musicians himself, playing the bass viol, a skill he shared with two of the great composers (featured here) who were to figure prominently at his court - Nicholas Lanier and William Lawes. On his accession in 1625, Charles established 'the King's Musick' - a large band of musicians compromising some 6 recorders, 3 flutes, 9 oboes and sackbuts, 12 viols and 14 lutes and voices to perform at court ceremonials, masques and for private occassions. Many further recordings are available on Metronome from this period and these composers including albums by Concordia, the Lawes Consort, Paul Agnew, Christopher WIlson and others



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Compiled to complement the exhibition Orazio Gentileschi at the Court of Charles I held in London, Bilbao and Madrid in 1999, this collection is a broad introduction to the musical splendour and ambition of Charles I's court. It includes the work of Nicholas Lanier, the First Master of the King's Music, who was reputed to be the lover of Artemisia Gentileschi, the daughter of the painter Orazio Gentileschi who was the Court Painter; William Lawes, the greatest English composer of the XVIIth century, who died valiantly in the Royalist cause at the siege of Chester; and contemporary settings of the poetry of John Donne by Corkine, Hilton and Sumarte.

"An enterprising collaboration between Metronome and the National Gallery [...] irresistibly luscious."
(BBC Music Magazine, July 1999)