The viol consort was developed in northern Italy in the 1490s and spread quickly north of the Alps to Austria and other German-speaking areas.  Viols were used to play serious contrapuntal music, and to accompany the voice, particularly in songs for a tenor voice and three instruments.

In this concert serious songs and instrumental pieces by the Austrian court composer Heinrich Isaac (d. 1517) and his pupil Ludwig Senfi (c. 1486-1542/3) are contrasted with settings of popular music, including haunting folksongs.  Also included is Isaac’s famous song ‘Innsbruck, ich muss dich lassen’, the melody of which became a Lutheran chorale and was set by many composers, including Bach and Brahms.

John Potter is one of the most distinguished tenors active in the early music field, as a solo singer and as a member of vocal ensembles such as the Hilliard Ensemble, Red Byrd and the Dowland Project.  He is also a writer and academic, with several books on the theory, practice and history of singing to his credit.  Alison Crum, Roy Marks and Andrew Kerr are members of the Rose Consort of Viols, and have been prominent in the revival of the earliest type of viols, modelled partly after instruments shown in paintings by the early sixteenth-century Ferrarese artist Lorenzo Costa.