Four hundred years on from his birth, has William Lawes’s time come again? Will there be T-shirts, mugs, a movie, tunes on everybody’s lips? The death of the royalist Lawes during the siege of Chester in 1645 might help the movie, but wide fame is still hard to imagine.

Henry Purcell, his historical successor, learnt much from Lawes but beat him easily in punch and variety; even Lawes’s greatest fans allow that. Purcell rejoices in public display. Lawes’s music, passionately introspective, is more the fruit of a private art, best seen in the consort pieces written for Charles I’s pleasure or an aristocrat’s drawing room.

Still, we are promised a Lawes television series. And more CDs from Concordia, who opened the Wigmore Hall’s anniversary concerts on Wednesday with a terrific display of what makes this consort special.

First notes of the F major suite opened up like a flower’s petals, inviting us into a magic garden, with six viols and supporting organ weaving contemplative counterpoint, or tying themselves in knots only to break free with a surprise leap of thought and key.

Concordia’s strengths dazzled from the platform too. You can manicure this music to death; Mark Levy’s group stayed euphonious but saved us from glacial suavity. And they were expert in clarifying those gorgeous, moving inner parts. One of the most characteristic Lawes traits is scurrying counterpoint suspended perilously over sustained pedal notes or the slow progress of an old plainsong chant. The music gets airborne, and we fly alongside. Concordia caught that feeling superbly in the B-flat major suite’s In Nominy.

Even the most addicted Lawes fans realise the need for a break from his musings. Concordia provided Purcell, Byrd and the voice of Robin Blaze... In Paradise, composed by Anonymous, lit up the hall.

Blaze feasted too on the angular beauty of Lawes’s song When man for sin Thy judgement feels.

The next concert in the series is on January 24. Be careful. You might get hooked.

GEOFF BROWN