BYRD The Great Service in the Chapel Royal
Musica Contexta present ‘a day in the public life of Byrd’
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: William Byrd
Genre:
Vocal
Label: Chandos
Magazine Review Date: 09/2012
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 67
Mastering:
Stereo
DDD
Catalogue Number: CHAN0789
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
Great Service |
William Byrd, Composer
(The) English Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble Musica Contexta Steven Devine, Organ William Byrd, Composer |
Author: Richard Lawrence
And there’s the rub. The canticles in the ‘Great Service’, spaciously laid out for double choir, need more than 17 singers to make their full effect. One of the selling points is the use of cornetts and sackbuts to double the voices in the ‘full’ sections. They are silent in the ‘verse’ sections, which are accompanied only by the organ, but the small size of the choir makes the contrast between solo and tutti barely noticeable.
In fact the presence of the instruments means that there is a sameness about the sound: splendid in its way, but undifferentiated. It would help if the singing were more characterful: Byrd’s word-painting at ‘He hath scattered the proud’ in the Magnificat goes for little. The other selling point is the use of Elizabethan pronunciation. An interesting experiment on both counts; but turn rather to the Choir of Westminster Abbey: larger forces, organ accompaniment and the music appropriately transposed up by a minor third.
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