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"There are two means of refuge from the misery of life — music and cats." - Albert Schweitzer

Few other ensembles can match the range of Fretwork’s repertory, spanning as it does the first printed music of 1501 in Venice, to music commissioned by the group this year. This extraordinary breadth of music has taken them all over the world since their debut in 1986; but they now prefer to travel by train and car. Their recordings of the classic English viol repertory – Purcell, Gibbons, Lawes, Dowland & Byrd – have become the benchmark by which others are judged, while their newly-commissioned music has included works by Sir George Benjamin, Nico Muhly, Elvis Costello, John Woolrich and many others. The consistently high standards they have achieved have brought music old and new to audiences hitherto unfamiliar with the inspiring sound-world of the viol.

Featured on

Various composers
In Chains of Gold Box Set
Magdalena Consort
John Jenkins
DIVISION The Virtuoso Consort
Fretwork
Orlando Gibbons, Nico Muhly
My Days
Fretwork
Matthew Locke
Matthew Locke The Little Consort
Fretwork
Various composers
Tom & Will – Weelkes & Byrd 400 Years
The King's Singers | Fretwork
Thomas Lupo
Fantasia
Fretwork
Matthew Locke
The Flat Consort
Fretwork
Various composers
An Elizabethan Christmas
Fretwork
Various composers
Lamento
Iestyn Davies
Various composers
In Chains of Gold Volume 2
Fretwork
Various composers
In Nomine II
Fretwork
Michael Nyman, Henry Purcell
If
Fretwork
John Jenkins
Complete Four-Part Consort Music
Fretwork
Orlando Gibbons
In Chains of Gold: The English Pre-Restoration Verse Anthem Vol. 1, Orlando Gibbons Complete Consort Anthems
Fretwork
Orlando Gough
The World Encompassed
Fretwork