Purcell said that his 1683 Sonatas of Three Parts “faithfully endeavour’d a just imitation of the most fam’d Italian Masters,” and that through his “bold and daring” works he wanted “to bring the seriousness and gravity of that Sort of Musick into vogue”. The composer’s delight in harmonic tension is not confined to slow movements, where skeins of chromatic lines can seem as self-perpetuating as the spiral of a revolving barber pole. It’s sometimes even more dizzying in the gaiety and giddiness of fast movements. The boldness of the music can still take one’s breath away, and the King’s Consort really get under the skin of these sometimes highly dissonant pieces.

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