First I must be honest and confess to a certain prejudice about some (though not all) of the repertory of English keyboard music of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. There are bodies of music which are essentially for performers rather than for listeners, the early seventeenth-century English repertory of viol music is one such, and much contemporary keyboard music is another. This is not to deny the appeal of some individual pieces, particularly the finest works by Byrd and Bull, but it does make it hard to contemplate long recordings of a sequence of pieces by lesser composers. Peter Philips is not Byrd. The shorter works are usually more compact and coherent in language than the longer ones which by contrast can seem diffuse and even uncoordinated. That difficulty certainly arises with some of the pieces tackled here, and Emer Buckley's rather deliberate and sometimes slightly wooden approach doesn't always produce the most convincing result, though in other details he projects a good sense of the essence of the style with its highly mannered ornamentation and virtuoso passage-work. In the end it comes down to the crucial question of tempo, both in terms of initial choice and in relation to a willingness to introduce variety as the grammar of the writing seems to require.
Nevertheless, despite my qualms there are some delightful performances of some fine pieces, among which I would include the three elaborations of Italian vocal works (including the famous Amarilli of Giulio Caccini, a favourite with English composers), and the brief but delightfully energetic Gallierdo which Buckley throws off with great elan and verve. Overall then, a mixed bag, which might have made easier listening had more than one instrument been used.'