Lawes: Consort Music for The Harp, Bass Viol, Violin & Theorbo

Cheryl Ann Fulton, Triple harp
Robert Grossman, Theorbo
Stanley Ritchie, Early violin
Roy Wheldon, Bass viol

This collection of 17th-century consort music cannot fail to entice the listener with the sounds of historical instruments in an unusual combination: triple harp, theorbo, bass viol, and Renaissance violin. Of these instruments, the triple harp is the least known today. It has three rows of strings; the middle row, which can be plucked by either hand, contains the chromatic pitches. The triple harp originated in Naples in the late 16th century and quickly spread to France and from there to England in the hands of William Lawes' harpist LeFlelle. 

William Lawes was born in Salisbury in 1602. Both he and his brother Henry, also a prominent composer, were pupils of John Cooper (Giovanni Coperario) and colleagues of John Wilson and John Jenkins. In 1635 Lawes was appointed to the Royal Chapel and enjoyed the patronage of Charles I until, in the year 1645, he was killed in the Battle of Chester.