Byrd reviews
Byrd 1588 (Consort Songs)
Spem in alium - Vidi Aquam
After Silence
In Chains of Gold
An English Sett for Trumpet
Byrd: Motets
Orpheus: Songs, Arias and Madrigals by Johnson, Draghi, Greene, Byrd, Rasi, Monteverdi, Rossi et al
English Motets: Works by Tallis, Byrd, Tomkins et al
The Long 17th Century
Daniel-Ben Pienaar's captivating musical odyssey across 17th-century Europe
Melancholia: Madrigals and motets
c1300 – c2000: Works by Binchois, Byrd, Dufay, Glass et al
In a Strange Land – Elizabethan Composers in Exile
From Byrd to Byrd
The Unknown Traveller: Works by Byrd, Faignient, Ferrabosco, et al
The Baroque Bohemians
Readers who are fans of Red Priest and know the sort of things the group gets up to will need no further enticement other than the release of its latest CD. Others, dare I say it, may need to proceed with caution. This is a disc of arrangements. Many of them work well and we can admire the vitality, imagination and virtuosity on display.
Bertrand Cuiller on the harpsichord and virginal performs works by Byrd
Cuiller contrasts plummy virginals with harpsichord in a recital of Byrd favourites, sandwiching Philips’s Pavana and Galiarda Dolorosa, outstandingly the most touching pieces, particularly given their often yearningly dissonant tuning.
George Pratt
Gustav Leonhardt plays Harpsichord Works by Bach, Bull, Byrd, Gibbons, Hassler, Pachelbel, Ritter and Strogers
Leonhardt uses all the permutations of a hybrid ‘claviorganum’ (harpsichord and pipe organ) and a later Baroque harpsichord in this colourful historical display. The sustaining organ in unison with the short-lived harpsichord is striking.
George Pratt
Stile Antico sing Tomkins, Clemens non Papa, Byrd, Gombert, Tallis, Victoria, McCabe, Sheppard, Gibbons & Ceballos
Byrd
Byrd’s repertory is familiar largely through English recordings. Departing radically from this tradition, Philippe Herreweghe renews the power of Byrd’s masterpieces with sensual, intimate, moving, and very un-English performances. We have to lean in to hear what’s going on, as Herreweghe uses silence, and unexpected twists in dynamic and tempo to build intensity. Compare, for instance, this disc’s Infelix ego with that of the Cardinall’s Musick on Hyperion.
Byrd: The Three Masses
This recording joins two great legacies: Byrd’s Masses and English Catholic choristers. Although Catholic choral foundations championed Byrd’s music from the late Victorian era, early music groups and Anglican choristers have been the chief performers of Byrd on disc. Martin Baker here boldly claims Byrd’s three Masses for the Westminster Cathedral Choir.
Byrd
Byrd
JS Bach • Byrd • Ligeti
Harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani contrasts and connects the keyboard works of William Byrd, Bach and Ligeti in this concert recital recorded at London’s Wigmore Hall. In his liner notes – eloquent as his playing – Esfahani dubs Byrd ‘the father of Bach and Beethoven and Chopin and Liszt’. Certainly the opening sequence captures the gamut of Byrd’s genius, as battle pieces sit cheek by jowl with courtly dances, variations on 16th-century pop songs give way to cerebral and intricate fantasias or spiritual musings on plainchants.