The Cardinall’s Musick is now at Volume 11 in its long-ongoing–and well-regarded–William Byrd series (which began on ASV), and perhaps it’s not surprising that at this point the majority of the motets on offer–from both the Cantiones Sacrae 1591 and the Gradualia 1607–are not among Byrd’s better-known works. But the fact that many of these are not familiar and are rarely if ever found on recordings makes this a most welcome release for devotees of this period and especially of this composer.
Listeners interested in comparisons between the generally more solemn character and mood of the 1591 pieces and the somewhat freer-styled (sometimes surprisingly so) motets from the later Gradualia will find themselves well-occupied, but anyone who loves Byrd will appreciate the unvarying magnificence of the bright and uplifting Nunc scio vere (1607) and the rich, lower-voice timbre of the earnestly desolate Circumdederunt me from 1591 (“The sorrows of death have surrounded me…”). Perhaps most typical of Byrd’s enduring mastery of text and voices is the program’s final selection, the motet Haec dicit Dominus (1591), which (again employing predominantly lower-register voices) juxtaposes lusciously scored homophonic passages with deliberate, flowing imitative lines above solid, steadily moving harmonies.
Carwood decided to include a Litany (from the Gradualia 1605) along with the group of unusual six-voice motets honoring Saints Peter and Paul, and while this is interesting, uncommonly heard music, its lengthy, repetitive, strictly service-oriented character becomes a bit tedious when heard out of its intended context.
Some listeners may prefer this ensemble’s one-to-a-part performance mode, which favors the color and expressive character of individual solo voices over a more polished ensemble blend, and indeed it may more authentically represent the way it would have been heard in Byrd’s time, especially in the Catholic enclave at Ingatestone. While I’m inclined to favor a more “blended” ensemble quality involving more voices–found in the Peter and Paul works in excellent performances by The Sixteen on Virgin Classics, available from Arkivmusic.com’s “on demand” reissue program–The Cardinall’s Musick is certainly one of the world’s more authoritative sources for well-researched, committed, fully engaging performances of Byrd’s music, and anyone who wants to know the entire range of his work needs no further encouragement from me in making this newest release–in very fine sound from the chapel at Arundel Castle–their next acquisition. [2/4/2009]
