Richard Campbell

The viola da gamba, part of the viol family, is a 15th-century bowed instrument played not unlike a cello, but with frets on the fingerboard in the manner of a guitar.

Richard Campbell with his viola da gamba

Fretwork (the name was Campbell's idea) came together during a tour of Spain in which Campbell and his fellow viol players Richard Boothby and William Hunt were performing in part of a concert arranged by Andrew Parrott's Taverner Consort. With little else to do, the trio began working on their own repertoire. Soon the group had expanded to six members and they were working with other early music specialists, including the soprano Emma Kirkby and the countertenor Michael Chance.

An approach from the composer George Benjamin, who had heard their recording of Byrd, opened up a new opportunity: why not write a contemporary work for these early instruments, he suggested. Soon John Tavener, Michael Nyman and Thea Musgrave had also written for them. Another fan was Elvis Costello, who shared Campbell's interest in John Dowland, the English Renaissance composer. In 1995 the ensemble was invited to perform at his Meltdown Festival.

Meanwhile, their disc Birds on Fire features music for viols from Jewish composers at the Court of Henry VIII alongside a klezmer-influenced work written for them by Orlando Gough. Two years ago their recording of the complete Fantasias by Henry Purcell won a Gramophone Award.

Campbell also enjoyed a wider musical portfolio, including appearances on albums by Kate Bush and Robbie Williams, dancing a galliard (a Renaissance dance) for Channel 4 television, singing with the Dufay Collective (another early music outfit) and appearing as the onstage musician in the British premiere of Vivaldi's 1717 opera L'Incoronazione di Dario at Garsington in 2008.

He was a passionate advocate for his instrument and its music, always happy to discuss its place in the musical firmament and often stressing his point that Dowland was "the Bob Dylan of his day".
Richard John Campbell was born in west London on February 21 1956. His mother was from an academic family; his father was a teacher who moved the family to Cornwall when he was appointed headmaster of a school in the county. After Marlborough, where he first played cello and sang in the choir, Richard read Classics at Peterhouse, Cambridge. At the International Cello Centre, held in the Scottish Borders, he developed a fascination for the music of Dowland. After further study at the Guildhall in London and with the Baroque specialist Wieland Kuijken in the Netherlands, Campbell toyed with the idea of becoming a Latin teacher, but instead threw himself into the capital's musical milieu, joining the Dowland Consort.
As well as his Fretwork commitments, Campbell played continuo cello for conductors such as John Eliot Gardiner, Harry Christophers and Richard Hickox; appeared with the London Symphony Orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic and the Mahler Chamber Orchestra; and performed frequently with the flautist Martin Feinstein and the violinist Catherine Manson. He taught at the Royal Academy of Music.
In 1998 Fretwork took part in the Lockerbie Memorial Concert at Westminster Cathedral; three years later they took a stunning series of performances, that included lighting effects, dancers and intricate choreography of the instrumentalists' movements, around a number of English cathedrals. Latterly they had turned their attention to the music of JS Bach and are presently on tour performing the Goldberg Variations.
In 1988 Richard Campbell married Henrietta Wayne. In recent years he had spent more time back in Cornwall. There he indulged his passions for Latin, literature and cigarettes; he also had a large collection of early instruments. Latterly he had learnt to ride a motorbike, but in the end failed to fight off the depression which had affected him for much of his life.
He is survived by his wife and by a son and a daughter.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/music-obituaries/8381923/Richard-Campbell.html