Product Review

Andrew Carwoodand the Cardinall's Musick have recorded the complete Latin church music of William Byrd, the final volume of which won a Gramophone Record of the Year award. Now they turn to Byrd's English church music, a genre that shows the composer treading a path between his Catholicism and the requirements of the reformed Church of England. But far from sublimating Byrd's genius, this difficult situation gave rise to one of his most fertile periods. Written for ten voices, the Great Service is gorgeously lavish and grand - very different to the simple, unmelismatic style demanded by the Anglican clerics. Also recorded here are five beautiful English settings on sacred themes. Masterpieces in miniature, each work is highly distinctive and demonstrates Byrd's genius for word-painting, his typically Elizabethan wit and of course his imaginative handling of polyphony.