William BYRD Consort Songs

 

Songs: O Lord, bow down thine heav’nly eyes, My mistress had a little dog, O you that hear this voice, Content is rich, O that most rare breast, My mind to me a kingdom is, Constant Penelope, Truth at the first, While Phoebus us’d to dwell (The noble famous Queen), He that all earthly pleasure scorns, Out of the orient crystal skies, O Lord, how vain,

 

Instrumental music: Fantasias II & III a 6, Fantasia III a 4 (In manus tuas from Gradualia I), Pavan & Galliard a 6

 

Emma Kirkby (soprano)

Fretwork: Richard Boothby, Richard Campbell, Wendy Gillespie, William Hunt, Julia Hodgson, Susanna Pell (viols)

 

The stature of William Byrd the church musician, has somewhat obscured his pioneering achievement in the more intimate genre of consort song for solo voice with string accompaniment.

Early-music star Emma Kirkby joins forces with Fretwork to present this wide- ranging selection of Byrd songs “of sundrie natures.”

 

There is something particularly satisfying about the sound of a consort song, in which the strongly contrasted timbres of voice and viols are integrated into a unified polyphonic texture where the singer is simply first among equals. It is, however, a real test of the vocalist's interpretative powers - a test which, on this enjoyable disc, Emma Kirkby passes with flying colours.

Not only is her diction absolutely exemplary, but her ability to use subtly judged shadings of vocal colour and dynamic level to bring out the full meaning of the poetry is outstanding. This is specially marked in strophic songs such as Content is rich, where the respective discontents of ploughman, merchant, lover prince and miser are neatly characterised; but it is equally notable in the elegies for Sir Philip Sidney and Mary Queen of Scots, or in Penelope's touching letter to the absent Ulysses. The tone is predominantly serious, meditative if not melancholy, but the toy tragedy of My Lady Had a Little Dog provides a nice touch of both humour and slightly tongue-in-cheek drama.

Elizabeth Roche, Telegraph

 

Harmonia Mundi HMU907383