Release Date: 01 October 2013
Label: Helios / Hyperion Records Ltd
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 034571154299
Description
Here is a fine recording to draw the listener into the richly layered world of Queen Elizabeth I. William Byrd’s ‘consort songs’ tell of courtly love; Sir Philip Sidney’s demise in battle becomes an eloquent lament; an old woman tumbling down amid a flurry of human skulls represents contemporary desires for freedom of speech; moral temptations are likened to a storm-tossed ship; and a hymn to the Muses is inspired by the death of Thomas Tallis.
The longest single piece here is Byrd’s famous Lullaby, ‘My sweet little baby’, one of the most popular of his works during the composer’s lifetime, and one which has been a deserving favourite ever since.
Despite Byrd’s domestic-musician-flattering preface in which he claimed these works were designed to persuade ‘everyone to learn how to sing’, this music makes the highest vocal demands: demands far exceeded in the glorious singing of Robin Blaze.
Tracklisting
Gidon Kremer, Kremerata Baltica
Laurence Perkins
Takacs Quartet, Marc-Andre Hamelin
English National Opera Orchestra / Martyn Brabbins
The Gesualdo Six / Owain Park
Steven Osborne
Stephen Hough, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra / Sakari Oramo
Steven Isserlis, Philharmonia Orchestra / Paavo Jarvi
Alexandra Papastefanou
Isabel Alvarez, Carlos Oramas, Jose Marin, Santiago de Murcia, Juan Hidalgo, Gaspar Sanz, Juan Aran
Tubicinatores Gedanenses et Arcus Adiuncti; Pawel Hulisz
Le Concert des Nations - Jordi Savall
L'arpa festante; Anton Steck
Ensemble d4
Lina Tur Bonet; Jadran Duncumb
Accademia del Piacere; Fahmi Alqhai; Quiteria Munoz
