THE Palisander Ensemble held a capacity audience enthralled at last week’s concert in Skipton Town Hall, the fifth of this season’s concerts for Skipton Music.

The ingenious programme was built round the theme of the six wives of Henry VIII, and each “wife” was introduced in engaging manner by the ensemble, outlining key aspects of their reign and the music which they would have enjoyed. Fittingly, Henry himself had the first and last word with “The kynge’s balade”.

The ensemble play a formidable array of recorders, great and small. For much of the programme they used a matched set of renaissance recorders, ranging from the enormous contrabass to the tiny sopranino, with a wonderfully mellow and sweet sound. It was an especial delight to hear the “great consort” of four low-pitched recorders.

This was especially effective in slower pieces such as de Rore’s sublime “ancor che col partire” and Tallis’ “if ye love me”; but even the contrabass recorder in such skilled hands sounded amazingly mobile in faster pieces.

There was opportunity too to enjoy the agility and brilliance of the higher pitched instruments, with each of the three “volte” from Praetorius’ collection of dance music progressively higher and faster.

This was not altogether a concert for purists. The ensemble play renaissance music with great style and sensitivity, with a tasteful and not excessive use of “divisions” (decorations). But several of the pieces were “arranged”, no doubt with the best of intentions: the result was some very odd harmonic progressions which in Henry’s day would have resulted in a lengthy sentence in the Tower! And your reviewer was not completely convinced by the addition of compositions in a contemporary folk style.

I recognise that the ensemble want to make the music accessible but surely there is already enough variety in this attractive programme without adding further elements? But these are minor cavils to what was a most enjoyable evening.

The final concert in Skipton Music’s 2023-24 season is on Tuesday March, 19, at Skipton Town Hall with Connaught Brass playing “from Clara to Kurt”. Details and tickets from the society’s website at https://www.skiptonmusic.org.uk/