Byrd: The Three Masses

Opis

Byrd: The Three MassesOpis:Product Description A new recording of the most perfect of Tudor masterpieces, Byrd's three Mass-settings, from the cradle of their nineteenth-century rehabilitation. Westminster Cathedral Choir is enjoying a vintage period, and here we hear its trademark sound in all its glory: unfettered, natural singing from the trebles underpinned by warm yet clear tones from the gentlemen. This recording celebrates Byrd's Catholic Masses in two ways simultaneously. Most obviously, it addresses great and timeless works, which themselves address great and timeless liturgical texts. But at the same time it reminds us that the revival of Byrd's Masses in the late nineteenth century was pioneered by Roman Catholic church choirs. This is a point worth pondering. Since the accession of Queen Elizabeth I in 1558, the choirs of England's Protestant cathedrals and college chapels have had their own distinctive musical repertory, which has flourished and grown in unbroken tradition. The anthems and services of Thomas Tallis, for instance, have never fallen from cathedral use; they have been the epitome of Choral Evensong and Eucharist for more than four centuries. This Anglican repertory, however, is not what Roman Catholic worship requires. When major Catholic choral foundations were established in late Victorian and Edwardian England, at Downside Abbey, the Brompton Oratory, and above all at Westminster Cathedral, there was a quest for new and more relevant music; and it was at these places that William Byrd's three Latin Masses were revived. Hence the pertinence of this recording; it celebrates that Catholic revival no less than it celebrates the works themselves. Review Byrd's double life, in public a member of Queen Elizabeth I's Chapel Royal in a newly Protestant England, in private a covert Catholic, directly shaped his music. Grand works such as the Great Service are among the glories of the English choral tradition. In contrast, the three Latin masses set here, long neglected, were for amateur, chamber performance in hidden Catholic communities. Westminster Cathedral Choir may sing them with more splendour and finesse than Byrd himself would have expected, yet the results are uplifting and moving. It's no slight to these musicians to say the disc is worth buying for the Byrd scholar John Milsom's incomparable notes: a masterly encapsulation of Tudor church music history in a few dense pages. ***** --Observer, 17/8/14 This recording joins two great legacies: Byrd's masses and English Catholic choristers. Although Catholic choral foundations championed Byrd's music from the late Victorian era, early music groups and Anglican choristers have been the chief performers of Byrd on disc. Martin Baker boldly claims Byrd's three Masses for the Westminster Cathedral Choir. Performance ***** Recording ***** BBC MUSIC CHORAL & SONG CHOICE --BBC Music Magazine, Dec'14 They capture both its significance in the context of a living, breathing liturgical experience and an authenticity born of absolute fluency. IRR, Dec'14/// Martin Baker and his multitudinous singers bring Byrd's freeform melodic lines deftly into relief within lush polyphonic texture, with emotional immediacy and a refreshing lack of fussiness, and the phrase shaping and sectional contrast and delineation are thrilling. **** --Early Music Today, Mar-May'15Autor:Westminster Cathedral Choir Martin BakerNośnik:Audio CDPłyt:Język: English: Published; English: Original Language; EnglishData wydania: 2025-09-12Waga: 0.21 gramWysokość: 0.4 cmSzerokość: 4.9 cmDługość: 5.6 cmThree massesUWAGA: Kupując produkt na tej aukcji zgadzasz się na wydłużony termin realizacji wysyłki (10-14 dni roboczych). Podany towar pochodzi z zagranicznego magazynu, stąd wydłużony czas realizacji który podany jest obok.