The William Byrd Edition, Vol 2: Early Latin Church Music & Propers for Christmas

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Volume Two of ASV's complete Byrd edition includes the propers for Christmas Day Mass (from Byrd's collection Gradualia) bookended by rarely performed church music. The directors pay particular attention to proper pitch and scoring, correcting the excessive upward transposition of recent decades. Most pieces are done one singer per part, highlighting the beauty of particular voices and individual lines. Real finds include two three-voice Alleluyas, the exuberant "Decantabat populus," the sweet supplication "Deus in adjutorium," and the psalm-setting "In exitu Israel" (composed jointly by Byrd, Sheppard, and Mundy). This group's singing, always beautiful, is often too relaxed (as if they all need a double espresso); only "Decantabat" and "Deus in adjutorium" have sufficient momentum. Still, these are skillful performances of worthwhile pieces nobody else is likely to record. --Matthew Westphal

Tracks:

Domine Ante Te Omne Desiderium A6
Circumspice Jerusalem A6
Te Lucis Ante Terminum A4
Petrus Beatus A5
Christus Qui Lux Es A4
Reges Tharsis Et Insulae A5
Introit-Ecce Advenit Dominator Dominus
Gradual-Surge Illuminare Jerusalem
Offertory-Reges Tharsis Et Insulae
Communion-Vidimus Stellam Ejus In Oriente
Domine Deus Omnipotens A5
Sacris Solemniis A5
Benigne Fac Domine A5
Super Flumina Babylonis (Philippe De Monte) A8
Quomodo Cantabimus A8

Customer Reviews:

Heavenly.......2002-05-21

We really miss out these days! You have to go to one of these high Episcopal "bells and smells" outfits to hear the Mass sung!
If you want to raise your spirits I highly recommend this cd. William Byrd wrote incredibly beautiful and spiritual music, and his own personal story is inspiring as well.

How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?.......2001-09-11

I agree with everything that Mr Breen, the first reviewer of this record, has said. And like him, I find the great 8-part canonic motet "Quomodo Cantabimus" (Byrd's reply to Philippe de Monte's personal gift of "Super flumina Babylonis", featured on the previous track) simply wonderful, both in its own right and as an outstanding performance. "Sublime" is an overworked word, and I hesitate to use it; but in this context, for once, it seems wholly appropriate. Here is Byrd's consummate musical art. Here, too, is the cry of Recusant England, the community of which Byrd was so staunch a member. How indeed will the Lord's Song be sung "in terra aliena"? - in a land no longer familiar, hostile to the old pieties of Catholicism? From the other side of the Channel, the cosmopolitan De Monte poses the question in passionate, urgent, essentially Counter-Reformation terms: Byrd's reply is wonderfully serene (and complex). I sometimes think that this is the finest piece of church music ever written in England ...

The Byrd Edition just keeps getting better.................2001-05-01

The Cardinall's Musick are quite different from the usual choral sound that one would normally associate with a disc devoted to the works of William Byrd. The most remarkable difference is that this choir are actually singing! The sound is passionate and expressive, two qualities that are sadly lacking from a lot of the early music that is currently in vogue. It has been long fashionable for choirs to sing Byrd like oscilloscopes, but Andrew Carwood destroys that myth with this exceptional disc on the ASV label.

In the men's voice singing, the sound is intimate, well blended and impassioned. However, the whole choir opens up when the sopranos Rebecca Outram and Carys Lane join in track 2. The choir sings with a collective intelligence that amplifies the excellent editions created for them by David Skinner. There are a few examples of daring and clever use of musica ficta that the singers execute with alarming ease and without any sensationalist tactics. I wonder if this blend can be attributed to the vocal abilities of the choir, not only are they obviously fine singers but Andrew Carwood is letting them use their natural vibrato so you never feel that they are holding something back as is so often the case with recordings of polyphony. The result is deeply devotional and rather moving.

My abiding memory of this disc has to be the final track, Quomodo Cantabimus a8" which is a motet composed by William Byrd for his Spanish counterpart, Philip De Monte which is about as good as polyphony gets. The interaction between the Alto (Robin Blaze) and the sopranos is fantastic and thirds and fifths are so well in tune that they are zinging all over the place.

Tracks:

Ave Regina Caelorum A5
O Salutaris Hostia A6
Alleluya. Confitemini Domino A3
In Exitu Israel A4
Introit-Puer Natus Est Nobis
Gradual-Viderunt Omnes Fines Terrae-Alleluya-Dies Sanctificatus
Offertory-Tui Sunt Caeli
Communion-Viderunt Omnes Fines Terrae
Hodie Christus Natus Est
O Admirabile Commertium
O Magnum Mysterium
Decantabat Populus A5
Alleluya. Laudate Pueri Dominum A3
Deus In Adjutorium A6
Ad Dominum Cum Tribularer A8

Amazon.com

Volume Two of ASV's complete Byrd edition includes the propers for Christmas Day Mass (from Byrd's collection Gradualia) bookended by rarely performed church music. The directors pay particular attention to proper pitch and scoring, correcting the excessive upward transposition of recent decades. Most pieces are done one singer per part, highlighting the beauty of particular voices and individual lines. Real finds include two three-voice Alleluyas, the exuberant "Decantabat populus," the sweet supplication "Deus in adjutorium," and the psalm-setting "In exitu Israel" (composed jointly by Byrd, Sheppard, and Mundy). This group's singing, always beautiful, is often too relaxed (as if they all need a double espresso); only "Decantabat" and "Deus in adjutorium" have sufficient momentum. Still, these are skillful performances of worthwhile pieces nobody else is likely to record. --Matthew Westphal

The Byrd Edition, Vol. 1: Early Latin Church Music & Propers for Lady Mass in Advent

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The Byrd Edition, Vol. 1: Early Latin Church Music & Propers for Lady Mass in Advent
William Byrd , Andrew Carwood , and The Cardinall's Musick
Manufacturer: Gaudeamus
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

Motets | Vocal Non-Opera | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

Partsongs | Vocal Non-Opera | Opera & Vocal | Styles | Music

The William Byrd Edition, Vol 2: Early Latin Church Music & Propers for Christmas
The William Byrd Edition, Vol. 3: Early Latin Church Music & Propers for the Epiphany
The William Byrd Edition, Vol. 6: Music for Holy Week & Easter
The William Byrd Edition, Vol. 5: The Masses
The William Byrd Edition, Vol. 7: Cantiones Sacrae 1589 & Propers for Lady Mass from Christmas to Purification

ASIN: B0000030PD
Release Date: 1997-11-18

Tracks: