Consort

Consort, group of instruments or voices or a mixture of both performing together. The term is mainly used to refer to genres of English chamber music from about 1570 to 1720. It also came to mean the music played by such a group, and (especially in its later usage) the public performance of music generally. The term has its origins in the Latin consortio (fellowship, community), but the Italian concerto and the French concert had related meanings leading eventually to the now separate English term “concert“.

The word “consort” was rarely used during the period when the repertoire now known as “consort music” was written, the earliest recorded example in England being a description of an entertainment for Queen Elizabeth I in 1575. When it was used, however, it most frequently referred to a mixed group of instruments from different families, most specifically to an ensemble consisting of flute (or recorder), lute, bandora (a lute-like instrument), cittern, treble viol (or violin), and bass viol. It was for this combination that the Consort Lessons (1599) by Thomas Morley and the Lessons for Consort (1609) by Philip Rosseter were written. A mixed ensemble is nowadays often called a “broken consort”, although this term was not known until the late 17th century, and the term “broken” when used earlier (for instance, in Shakespeare’s plays) seems to have referred to the “breaking in division” (the improvisatory division of long notes into several shorter ones) associated with the lute and other plucked instruments of the consort. The term “whole consort” is nowadays sometimes used to refer to a consort consisting of instruments of the same family, although at the time, this was more likely to refer to the completeness of the group.

It was characteristic of ensemble music up to the mid-17th century to give a choice of instrumentation, the decision often being determined by function (for instance, to receive people of rank, for the theatre, or for teaching purposes) or by the social position of the players. Professional musicians were more likely to play violins and wind instruments, amateurs (a growing market) to play viols. This is clear from Anthony Holborne’s publication of 1599, whose instrumentation is stated as being for “viols, violins, or other musical wind instruments”. Instruments of the same family playing together were known, however: not simply recorders but flutes in the 16th century, particularly in France, and violins as well as viols. This is clear from pictorial evidence, title-pages such as those of the French music publisher Pierre Attaingnant, where flutes and recorders are specified, and from internal features such as range. The vast majority of Jacobean ensemble music (by Byrd, Gibbons, Lupo, Ferrabosco, and others) is clearly intended for a consort of viols.

The music which these consorts played ranged from dance music and In Nomine fantasias (by Tye, Byrd, and later Purcell) to the hybrid forms of the consort song and consort anthem, in which the instruments accompanied solo voices or a chorus.