William Lawes and His String Music

At the Haslemere Festival of 1931, one piece of String Music was so enthusiastically received by the audience that it had to be played three times over. A contemporary account says:— First place must be given, of course, to the finest compositions of the English school of music for viols. … Matthew Locke's Suite No. 1, for four viols, a Fantasy for six viols by Richard Deering, and, greatest of all, the Fantasy and Ayre No. 1, for six viols by William Lawes. There can remain no doubt that these works and a considerable number of others written for these instruments take their place in the front rank of music, on an equality with the last quartets of Beethoven. (It has been pleasant to find an increasing appreciation shown by the demands for encores of these items, the Lawes Fantasy and Ayre had actually to be given three times.)