*****
Fine music sung by a remarkable ensemble 1 Jun 2006
The Cardinall's Musick's Byrd Edition is one of the great recording projects of modern music-making, and we are extremely lucky that such a fine ensemble should take such time and care in presenting the music of one of England's great composers, William Byrd. This is the fourth edition in the series, and comprises motets from the 1575 Cantiones Sacrae collection. Amongst these are the wonderful Emendemus in melius (a motet for Ash Wednesday), the expressive Aspice, Domine quia facta est and the charming hymn setting of Siderum Rector.
The singing on this disc is of the highest quality, and achieves a near-perfect balance between the soloistic expression of each individual line with tightly controlled ensemble singing. As ever, David Skinner's liner notes are detailed and provide a range of points to consider in how modern ensembles choose to perform music such as this, which is removed from us by so great a period of time. Most fascinating, however, must be the facsimile of a page from the part-book of Diliges Dominum, which demonstrates Byrd's quite stupendous compositional skill (I will not attempt to explain the trick here, except to say it ranks alongside Bach's fugue writing in terms of technical prowess).
Above all, though, this disc presents music which gives pleasure in listening that simply does not fade. I have owned this cd for some five years now, and enjoy it as much now as when first it came into my hands. I hope you will find the same when you listen to it.
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