Byrd: Complete Consort Music

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Laurence Dreyfus (himself something of a Renaissance man), combines rigorous intellect with sensitive musicianship...Ensemble and intonation are flawless; keen rhythms and feather-light bowing... — BBC Music Magazine, August 2011, 5 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 16th May 2011
Catalogue No: CKD372
Label: Linn
Length: 79 minutes

Presto Recording of the Week

13th June 2011
Gramophone Awards

2011

Finalist - Early Music
BBC Music Magazine

August 2011

Disc of the month
Gramophone Magazine

September 2011

Editor's Choice

Byrd: Fantasia à 3 No. 3

Work length1:03

$1.00

$1.50

$2.05

Phantasm
Recorded: 06–08 September 2010
Recording Venue: Merton College Chapel, Oxford, United Kingdom

Byrd: Browning (The Leaves be Green)

Work length4:37

$1.00

$1.50

$2.05

Phantasm
Recorded: 06–08 September 2010
Recording Venue: Merton College Chapel, Oxford, United Kingdom

Byrd: Te Lucis Ante Terminum a4

Work length2:20

$1.00

$1.50

$2.05

Phantasm
Recorded: 06–08 September 2010
Recording Venue: Merton College Chapel, Oxford, United Kingdom

Byrd: In nomine a 5 (III)

Work length2:31

$1.00

$1.50

$2.05

Phantasm
Recorded: 06-08 September 2010
Recording Venue: Merton College Chapel, Oxford, United Kingdom

Byrd: Christe Redemptor

Work length3:15

$1.00

$1.50

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Phantasm
Recorded: 06-08 September 2010
Recording Venue: Merton College Chapel, Oxford, United Kingdom

Byrd: In nomine a5 (IV)

Work length2:42

$1.00

$1.50

$2.05

Phantasm
Recorded: 06-08 September 2010
Recording Venue: Merton College Chapel, Oxford, United Kingdom

Byrd: Fantasia a 4 (III)

Work length2:07

$1.00

$1.50

$2.05

Phantasm
Recorded: 06-08 September 2010
Recording Venue: Merton College Chapel, Oxford, United Kingdom

Byrd: Sermone Blando a3

Work length2:01

$1.00

$1.50

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Phantasm
Recorded: 06-08 September 2010
Recording Venue: Merton College Chapel, Oxford, United Kingdom

Byrd: Fantasia a 5 'Two Parts in One in the 4th Above'

Work length6:03

$1.00

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Phantasm
Recorded: 06-08 September 2010
Recording Venue: Merton College Chapel, Oxford, United Kingdom

Byrd: Fantasia à 6

Work length3:38

$1.00

$1.50

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Phantasm
Recorded: 06-08 September 2010
Recording Venue: Merton College Chapel, Oxford, United Kingdom

Byrd: Fantasia a 3

Work length1:46

$1.00

$1.50

$2.05

Phantasm
Recorded: 06-08 September 2010
Recording Venue: Merton College Chapel, Oxford, United Kingdom

Byrd: Christe qui Lux

Work length2:50

$1.00

$1.50

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Phantasm
Recorded: 06-08 September 2010
Recording Venue: Merton College Chapel, Oxford, United Kingdom

Byrd: In nomine a5 (II)

Work length2:31

$1.00

$1.50

$2.05

Phantasm
Recorded: 06-08 September 2010
Recording Venue: Merton College Chapel, Oxford, United Kingdom

Byrd: Christe qui Lux es a 4 (II)

Work length2:42

$1.00

$1.50

$2.05

Phantasm
Recorded: 06-08 September 2010
Recording Venue: Merton College Chapel, Oxford, United Kingdom

Byrd: In nomine a4 (II)

Work length2:34

$1.00

$1.50

$2.05

Phantasm
Recorded: 06-08 September 2010
Recording Venue: Merton College Chapel, Oxford, United Kingdom

Byrd: Fantasia à 6 (II)

Work length5:07

$1.00

$1.50

$2.05

Phantasm
Recorded: 06-08 September 2010
Recording Venue: Merton College Chapel, Oxford, United Kingdom

Byrd: Miserere a4

Work length1:32

$1.00

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Phantasm
Recorded: 06-08 September 2010
Recording Venue: Merton College Chapel, Oxford, United Kingdom

Byrd: Fantasia a 4

Work length2:21

$1.00

$1.50

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Phantasm
Recorded: 06-08 September 2010
Recording Venue: Merton College Chapel, Oxford, United Kingdom

Byrd: Christe qui Lux es a 4 (III)

Work length1:06

$1.00

$1.50

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Phantasm
Recorded: 06-08 September 2010
Recording Venue: Merton College Chapel, Oxford, United Kingdom

Byrd: In nomine a5 (V)

Work length2:50

$1.00

$1.50

$2.05

Phantasm
Recorded: 06-08 September 2010
Recording Venue: Merton College Chapel, Oxford, United Kingdom

Byrd: In nomine a4

Work length2:25

$1.00

$1.50

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Phantasm
Recorded: 06-08 September 2010
Recording Venue: Merton College Chapel, Oxford, United Kingdom

Byrd: Pavan & Galliard à 6

Work length3:57

$1.00

$1.50

$2.05

Phantasm
Recorded: 06-08 September 2010
Recording Venue: Merton College Chapel, Oxford, United Kingdom

Byrd: Fantasia a6 (III) (‘to the vyolls’)

Work length4:15

$1.00

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Phantasm
Recorded: 06-08 September 2010
Recording Venue: Merton College Chapel, Oxford, United Kingdom

Byrd: Pavan and Galliard a 5

Work length3:56

$1.00

$1.50

$2.05

Phantasm
Recorded: 06-08 September 2010
Recording Venue: Merton College Chapel, Oxford, United Kingdom

Byrd: Sermone Blando a 4 (II)

Work length2:14

$1.00

$1.50

$2.05

Phantasm
Recorded: 06-08 September 2010
Recording Venue: Merton College Chapel, Oxford, United Kingdom

Byrd: Fantasia a 3 (II)

Work length1:39

$1.00

$1.50

$2.05

Phantasm
Recorded: 06-08 September 2010
Recording Venue: Merton College Chapel, Oxford, United Kingdom

Byrd: Prelude and Goodnight Ground a 5

Work length5:39

$1.00

$1.50

$2.05

Phantasm
Recorded: 06-08 September 2010
Recording Venue: Merton College Chapel, Oxford, United Kingdom

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Favourites, William Byrd & Thomas Tallis

A Tudor double-whammy - David listens to recordings of William Byrd and Thomas Tallis.

Recording of the Week, Byrd’s Complete Consort Music

13th June 2011

The Gramophone Award-winning viol consort Phantasm brings sweetness and sensuality to the English composer’s fantasias, In Nomines and pavans and galliards on Linn Records.

“Phantasm’s playing is impeccable...” BBC Music Magazine

This new recording is the only complete collection of William Byrd’s consort music and includes new hymn settings that are premiere recordings.

William Byrd, who studied under Thomas Tallis, was the most celebrated Elizabethan composer of Renaissance consort music, English song, masses, Latin motets and keyboard works.

Byrd’s viol music is polyphonic and full of melancholy. The performances bring out the rich, overlapping textures of the compositions creating a mesmerising sound.

‘William Byrd Complete Consort Music’ is Phantasm’s second album with Linn; the first, ‘John Ward: Consort music for five and six viols’, was a Finalist in the 2010 Gramophone Awards.

Inspired by the great twentieth-century string quartets, Phantasm enjoys taking risks in its search for renditions that renew the expressive traditions of early music.

Critics have called Phantasm’s performances and recordings 'intoxicating', 'revelatory', 'electrifying', 'interpretations pervaded by a truly burning spirit'.

Phantasm’s recordings have won two Gramophone Awards, in addition to numerous other international nominations and citations, and are recognised as the most exciting viol consort active on the world scene today.

Director Laurence Dreyfus, who is also an esteemed musicologist, has made the study of 16th and 17th century instrumental music his life’s work. He brings this vast knowledge and immense passion into Phantasm and its recordings.

Phantasm has been made ‘Ensemble in Residence’ at Magdalen College, Oxford, which will enable them to present exciting series of concerts, both in the UK and internationally, in the coming months.

Reviews

August 2011

Laurence Dreyfus (himself something of a Renaissance man), combines rigorous intellect with sensitive musicianship...Ensemble and intonation are flawless; keen rhythms and feather-light bowing give a lightness of touch to the dances. The recorded balance is acutely judged, too, ensuring that Byrd's contrapuntal lines are always distinct.

August 2011

With perfect balance, immaculate tuning and exquisitely mathematical rhythm, phantasm reveal the genius in Byrd. While one viol takes the steady plainsong theme in the In Nomines the others move around it, at first decorously, then, unable to resist, dancingly.

September 2011

The playing is quite simply divine. Phantasm have long been known for their musical precision, to which they bring to this music a warm, woody, soft-edged articulation that suits it very well. The pacing of individual pieces and sections within them seems particularly sensitively judged and Byrd's textures sublimely balanced.

July/August 2012

there is...a sense of richness and interaction between the players which gives everything a warmth and uniformity of sound that is most satisfying.

October 2014

The Phantasm ensemble, led by musicologist Laurence Dreyfus, have made something of a speciality of Tudor and Renaissance consort music. Here they perform Byrd's whole output of consort works, demonstrating a side to the composer that is not often heard. The counterpoint that characterises his style (particularly in the in nomines) is clearly delineated and the sound is appropriately rich in melancholy.

The Independent on Sunday 15th May 2011

Phantasm's new recording is intoxicating...In three, four, five and six parts, the blend, balance, ensemble and tuning is faultless, the sound sweet but never cloying

23rd July 2011

You’re continually surprised by the potency of Byrd’s musical imagination – the occasional quirky modulation, or the subtle use of dance rhythms which give the music such lift. Linn’s production values are as exceptional as the performances, and this release is also available as a high-quality download. Blissful.

Byrd: Complete Consort Music

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Contents

Favourites, William Byrd & Thomas Tallis

Recording of the Week, Byrd’s Complete Consort Music

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