There aren't many better at it than Fretwork, consummate purveyors of The Art of Fugue at the Wigmore last Autumn in a concert that imprinted the B-A-C-H theme on our memories for good.
John Jenkins is contrasted with William Lawes in the notes here, Lawes being the adventurous, short-lived innovator while Jenkins is 'mellifluos', 'for the most part eschewing drama'.
And why not. One can have both. Music is a wide church, as is evidenced by my buying a Jesus & Mary Chain t-shirt on my way back from the cathedral this afternoon.
Fretwork and Jenkins can be allowed to meander through their seventeen Fantasias interspersed with two Pavans while one reads or, if so is inclined, discourses with friends over a bottle of probably something red but not too vigorous. On the other hand, it is also a pleasure to follow the lines through their natural development and elegant phrasings to their sensible conclusions. The mood shifts like the light might but the album is best treated as an organic whole and I don't suppose many will be favouring one piece over the others to any great extent. Fretwork are expertly across the whole show, demure, controlled and expressively in their element.
One might be concerned about anybody nominating Jenkins as their greatest composer or this disc as the best they've heard but you could equally despair of anyone who found no benefit from taking time to spend in its quietly radiant company. I hope it commands my attention often enough from the shelf once it is off the playlist and filed, next to Lawes by way of compare and contrast.
