Composer: William Byrd
Performer: Alamire, Fretwork, Martha McLorinan, Nicholas Todd, Grace Davidson
Conductor: David Skinner
Number of Discs: 2
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Inventa Records
Catalogue: INV1006
Release: 2021
Size: 2.63 GB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
CD 01
01. O God Give Ear
02. Mine Eyes With Fervency of Sprite
03. My Soul Oppressed With Care and Grief
04. O Lord, How Long Wilt Thou Forget
05. O Lord Who in Thy Sacred Tent
06. O You That Hear This Voice
07. Ambitious Love
08. Although The Heathen Poets
09. My Mind To Me a Kingdom Is
10. Farwell False Love
11. If Women Could Be Fair
12. Who Likes To Love
13. La Verginella
14. Lullaby, My Sweet Little Baby
15. All As a Sea
16. Prostrate, O Lord, I Lie
17. Come To Me Grief Forever
CD 02
01. Even From The Depth
02. Blessed Is He That Fears The Lord
03. How Shall A Young Man Prone To Ill
04. Help Lord, For Wasted Are Those Men
05. Lord In Thy Wrath Reprove Me Not
06. Though Amaryllis Dance in Green
07. Constant Penelope
08. I Joy Not in No Earthly Bliss
09. As I Beheld I Saw a Herdman Wild
10. Where Fancy Fond
11. What Pleasure Have Great Princes
12. In Fields Abroad
13. The Match That’s Made
14. Why Do I Use My Paper Ink and Pen?
15. Care For Thy Soul
16. Susanna Fair
17. If That a Sinner’s Sighs
18. O That Most Rare Breast
Following Tallis and Byrd’s first publishing venture of Cantiones Sacrae of 1575, Byrd waited some 13 years to again wake the presses with his compositions. His 1588 Psalmes, Sonets and Songs of Sadness and Pietie was his first solo publication, for which Elizabeth’s Lord Chancellor (and notable favourite), Sir Christopher Hatton, acted as patron.
This is the first complete offering of the collection and was recorded on the grounds of Holdenby House, once the largest Elizabethan country house in all of England. Written at the height of Byrd’s creativity, it contains a treasure trove of musical delights. More famous among the collection includes two funeral elegies for Sir Philip Sidney (Come to me grief forever and O that most rare breast), Why do I use my ink, paper and pen? which is thought to allude to the martyrdom of the Jesuit Edmund Campion in 1580, as well as lighter secular songs from joyful madrigals to pained laments. Byrd here represents practically all levels of human emotion, with works performed by a variety of ‘voyces or Instruments’ as the composer himself directs.