The Early Music Legend

From a paper on Authenticity, and Early Music, (page 3) by Nicholas Kenyon plus link      http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&docId=9546594 In 1968 the work of David Munrow's Early Music Consort of London was taking on an international dimension with its first tours and recordings, and over the next few years it succeeded in galvanizing audiences with its highly professionalized skills and invigorating performance style. Munrow had burst upon an unsuspecting world in May 1965, when he first assembled a Renaissance dance band to play Susato Danserye at Birming- ham University, and from then on his professional career, powered by driving enthusiasm and hard work, made remark- able strides. It is chronicled in the recordings he made for EMI--first of Morley and Susato, and then Ecco la primavera in 1969, Music of the Crusades in 1971, The Triumphs of Maximilian I in 1973, The Art of Courtly Love, and, as vocal music became more important to him, two major projects which ap...

The following comes from the Gramophone magazine. It is an article by Christopher Bishop who was Munrows producer. August 12th, I942—May I5th, 1976 There must be many of David Munrow's friends who, like me, find it hard to accept the fact that he is dead. His continued presence on television and on records makes it even more difficult to realize fully that so vital a person has gone. He leaves behind the very happiest memories, both musical and personal. David first bounced into my life in 1970, when we did a BBC programme together of madrigals accompanied by instruments. Basil Lam suggested that we should use David's recorder consort, and when I heard them play I realised that I had never heard recorders play in tune before. After the programme, I drove David from Broadcasting House to St John's Wood station, and on that short journey he told me about his work. That was typical of him—he never wasted a minute. Next morning he flew into my office with a tape of the...

MORLEY. Dances for Broken Consort*. SUSATO. The Danserye—Twelve Dancest *Morley Consort, t Early Music Consort of London both conducted by David Munrow. HMV HQS1249 (LI 60). Dances Joe Broken Consort: Mounsier's Almaine (Byrd); Lachrimae Pavan (Dowland); Michill's Galliard (Anonymous); Lute Duet—My Lord Chamberlain's Galliard (Dowland); The Jew's Dance (R. Nicholson); Captain Piper's Pavan and Galliard (Dowland); My Lord of Oxenford's Maske (Byrd); Lavolto (Morley); La Coranto (Morley). This is a delightful record. Because I have been out of England so much in the last few years, I had not previously had a chance of hearing David Munrow's Early Music Consort, but now I completely understand how they have achieved their great popularity. I suppose it was the New York Pro Musica, under the late Noah Greenberg, who pioneered this type of performance of Renaissance dance-music, bringing to it all the wide variety of ...