Consort Musicke vzw - Hathor Consort - Belgium

The Hathor Consort – named after Hathor, a mother goddess from Egyptian mythology – was founded in 2012 by Romina Lischka. Under her artistic direction, the consort devotes itself to Renaissance and Baroque music in which a string ensemble of viols takes centre
stage. Hathor Consort connects this refined chamber music repertoire of European origin with early and contemporary music from other continents, and with contemporary classical music and electronics. In multidisciplinary and intercultural concert forms, Hathor wishes to connect voices with each other. Interweaving music and image into poetic, multifaceted stories that resonate today. Performances are like meeting places where traditions inspire each other and where the aural and visual merge into one multimedia narrative.

Alfonso Ferrabosco the Younger, viol player at the court of Elizabeth I and Charles I, was the most innovative and influential composer of viol consort music of his generation. Following the steps of his father, composer Alfonso Ferrabosco the Elder, he continued the specifically English « In Nomine » tradition for viol consort into the seventeenth century while adding his own special touch in the « In Nomine through all parts » in using the cantus firmus in all voices with various rhythms and transpositions.

---

His greatest achievement was the development of an imitative counterpoint perfectly adapted to the viol. The particular character of Ferrabosco’s music was determined by his love for architecture and symmetrical forms which were integrated in all possible ways into his Fantasies: flexible motives, augmentations and diminutions of themes and a clear harmonic structure.