Old Ground

About the album

Old Ground explores ideas of memory, resonance and time through music from Renaissance England and new works by Australian composers, performed by Australian gambist Laura Vaughan in her debut solo album.

Drawing on 17th century sources including the Manchester Gamba Book and the Mansell Manuscript, the repertoire ranges from the elegant and sophisticated to the delightfully eccentric, featuring works by Richard Sumarte, William Corkine, Joseph Sherlie, Tobias Hume, Simon Ives and other remarkable voices of 17th century England. Many of the works are from the ‘lyra viol’ repertoire, a distinctive style of viola da gamba playing characterised by the use of numerous tunings and a repertoire that combines polyphonic writing, dance music, divisions and arrangements of popular tunes.

Alongside these centuries-old pieces are three contemporary works that continue the lyra viol’s tradition of invention and experimentation. Brooke Green’s The Spirit of Daphne takes Richard Sumarte’s Daphne as its point of departure, weaving echoes of the original into an entirely new sound world. Alice Chance’s Old Ground takes its title from the Baroque ground bass while contemplating something far older: meteorites that have travelled through space for millions of years before coming to rest on Earth. The result is a reverent, spacious work that reflects on deep time, wonder, and our connection to the ground beneath us. Vaughan adds her own compositional voice to the album with The Velvet Deep - a new work inspired by the Marian chant Ave Maris Stella, which explores the unique sonic possibilities of the baryton.

Warm, contemplative and resonant, Old Ground invites listeners into a world where antique melodies and contemporary imaginations meet, celebrating the viola da gamba as an instrument of extraordinary range, whose expressiveness remains as potent now as it was four centuries ago.