Includes William Byrd’s magnificent Browning fantasy, an unusual piece called Prelude and Ground and another excellent fantasy.
The surviving consort music of William Byrd (1543- 1623) is quite modest in quantity, compared to that of many English musicians of the following generation, but it is of impeccable quality. The most striking feature is the composer’s effortless mastery of counterpoint, and ability to develop material without resorting to instrumental padding. His music is clearly that of a musician whose main form of composition revolved round the discipline of setting words, and developing the melodic fragments and rhythms that stem from those words. This, I think, explains the almost Josquin-like concentration of much of this music. Even when producing rather busy textures, such as in the Preludium and Ground, the divisions have a certain thematic focus, and never degenerate into mere running up and down. The In nomine settings differ radically from those of, say, Christopher Tye, in the extent to which motives are developed and extended.
