Following on a successful and equally distinctive release offering service music and anthems of Gibbons, the Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford, and its director Bill Ives return with a similar program devoted to William Byrd. Once again the most immediately unusual feature of the sound is the presence of instrumental accompaniment by the viol consort Fretwork -- this music generally has been performed a cappella. But the group is in no way treading already-covered ground. The English-language music of Byrd, a Catholic in ...
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Following on a successful and equally distinctive release offering service music and anthems of Gibbons, the Choir of Magdalen College, Oxford, and its director Bill Ives return with a similar program devoted to William Byrd. Once again the most immediately unusual feature of the sound is the presence of instrumental accompaniment by the viol consort Fretwork -- this music generally has been performed a cappella. But the group is in no way treading already-covered ground. The English-language music of Byrd, a Catholic in the closet, has often been taken as rather plain and treated in kind of minimalist fashion, with its comparatively simple polyphonic writing straightforwardly presented. Ives and his youthful musicians hear a completely different Anglican Byrd, a melancholy, madrigalian whose soul is unlocked by the presence of the viols -- they slow the music down slightly and emphasize the small moments of dissonance, especially in cadential figures. The program includes several instrumental In...
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