When Francis Drake circumnavigated the globe in 1577 - 80, he took with him four viol players. We commissioned Orlando Gough to compose a work that contrasted original Elizabethan consort music and hymns of the 1570s with an imagined music of the exotic countries and cultures that Drake encountered on his epic voyage. He has added a narrative derived from the original accounts of the voyage and the result is a 90 minute through-composed work full of contrasts, serious and silly, sacred and profane, new and old, that has won extravagant praise, especially for the recent recording.

Now available on CD: