My Ladye Nevells Booke is a beautifully copied collection of keyboard works from 1591, and if that did not already give it scholarly interest as one of the most important of Tudor music manuscripts, its musical value is rendered inestimable by the fact that all of the 42 pieces it contains are by the giant of the age, William Byrd. Lucky Lady Nevell! We know little of her, but she must have pleased the gods somehow to have her name enshrined both in the title of this collection and in those of three of its individual pieces.

Christopher Hogwood made a fine recording of the entire book (three CD’s worth) for L’Oiseau- Lyre in 1974-75, but Terence Charlston here takes us on a quicker tour while maintaining its contours by selecting from each of the showcased genres and keeping them in their manuscript order. Thus, he opens with the weighty My Ladye Nevells Grownde, moves on through the descriptive The Battell (itself filleted for length) and a group of noble pavans and galliards, to end up among an assortment of tuneful song variations and eloquently contrapuntal fantasias and voluntaries. His playing is neatly tasteful, adding some well chosen extra ornaments but not seeking to overelaborate or impose on such perfectly composed music. If the dance movements are a touch sober, there is strong characterisation in The Battell, helped by the crisp tang of a Flemish harpsichord copy by David Evans, an instrument which also lends impressive grandeur to A Fancie. Elsewhere, it shares roughly equal duty with a Flemish virginals (also by Evans), offering a sound slightly feistier than the norm, but a mellow contrast nevertheless. An unassuming disc, perhaps, but still a fine sampler of one of the greatest of early keyboard composers.