Among the most prized exhibits of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, stands the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, the largest surviving anthology of Elizabethan and Jacobean keyboard music. Dating from a period during which theory and notation were undergoing radical change, the collection was probably compiled by Francis Tregian and falls just short of 300 compositions. These include a number by William Byrd, the foremost composer of the Elizabethan age.

Bringing together all of Byrd's works as featured in the anthology, this release contains many sets of variations -- including the infamous Walsingham MB8, which comprises no less than 22 embellished statements of the theme. The piece ranks among the most virtuosic of the composer's keyboard compositions, and appears alongside several instrumental dances such as the Pavan and Galliard. Often modal in flavour, these abound in rhythmic energy and continuity -- important features considering the static harmony and repetitive nature of the material. The Carman's Whistle also makes an appearance, a piece first popularised by Arthur Rubinstein during his historical recital programmes and which was later arranged by Percy Grainger.

A leading expert in the field of early music, Pieter-Jan Belder has recorded widely for Brilliant Classics over the years and returns once again to perform this illustrious programme of works. The release is an engaging follow-up to the first volume in the series, extending its instrumental range to include performances on a 1604 virginal by Ruckers as well as a chest organ, and comprises essential listening for keyboardists and early music aficionados alike.

Other information:
- Second volume of a unique project: the first complete recording of the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, dedicated to William Byrd.
- Recorded 19 & 20 October 2011, Westvestkerk Schiedam (CD1); 26 May & 1 June 2012, Doopsgezinde gemeente Dordrecht (CD2).
- A great achievement of Pieter-Jan Belder, one of the most respected and frequently recorded keyboard (harpsichord, clavichord, virginal, organ, hammerklavier) players of today. His recordings of Bach, Rameau, CPE Bach and Scarlatti (complete Sonatas!) have met with great critical acclaim in the international press.
- Belder plays a unique original Ruckers instrument from 1604, the details of which are described in the extensive liner notes in the booklet.
- Includes detailed notes on the history of the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book and the 1604 virginal used in the recording, notes on William Byrd's contribution to the anthology, and an artist biography
- Volume 1 was issued on BC 94303.

Performing on the Taylor & Boody Organ of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, the critically acclaimed organist Stephen Farr presents a rare exploration of the keyboard works of William Byrd on the organ. This historically informed instrument is made in the early English style and makes a fitting tribute in this, the composer's 400th anniversary year.

Classical Music

Within the earlier part of his long career William Byrd published three volumes of Cantiones Sacrae – sacred songs to Latin words. The first, in 1575, was a joint venture with his master Thomas Tallis, each composer contributing seventeen items. The others, called by Byrd the ‘Uber primus’ and ‘Uber secundus’ of sacred songs, appeared in 1589 and 1591; they contain respectively sixteen and twenty-one items (several of them being in two or more separately numbered sections). The present set of three CD’s contains a generous selection of items from these three collections. The first disc also includes three of Byrd’s keyboard pieces, interspersed with the vocal music.

Classical Music

Recorded in: Forde Abbey, Somerset 17 November 1994 Recorded in: The Warehouse, London 28-30 November 1994 Producer(s) Adrian Hunter Sound Engineer(s) Ben Connellan Richard Smoker (Assistant)

William Byrd's music in a unique recording on the Leversidge virginals of 1670 which was made in the Hill Music Room in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. The music is all taken from 'My Ladye nevells Booke' of 1591.

Classical Music

Musica Contexta translates literally as ‘music interwoven’, reflecting the group’s primary aim of presenting Renaissance music in the context of its original conception and function. The Great Service, consisting of settings of liturgical texts for Matins, Communion, and Evensong, is among the finest music by William Byrd for the Anglican Church. He wrote this grand-scale work for two five-part choirs who. The endless variety with which Byrd played with the available combinations gives the Great Service a kaleidoscopic character, which is very rare in late Renaissance music.

Marking the quadricentenary of Byrd’s death in 2023, the Men & Boys Choir of Saint Thomas, Fifth Avenue, New York, recreates the Catholic Mass for the Feast of Corpus Christi as Byrd might have experienced it in the late 16th century. This new recording includes various Latin motets written by Byrd for the feast, along with the remarkable Mass setting in four parts.

Part of this album is a recording, originally released on LP only in 1981, of the Saint Thomas Choir under the late Gerre Hancock, singing Byrd’s complete Great Service, written in the vernacular for the reformed Anglican liturgy – the flip side of Byrd’s Latinate expression.

William Byrd's vocal works would have assured him a place in history as the greatest English composer of his generation. Yet he was also the outstanding composer of his time in the realm of instrumental music - indeed, probably the first musician to achieve supreme stature simultaneously in music for voices, for instrumental consort, and for solo keyboard instrument. 

In the hands of Pieter-Jan Belder, whose experience in the field of 17th-century keyboard music is almost unrivaled, these songs and dances and themes and variations seem to develop and unfold as naturally as a tree buds and spreads. Only one recording of Byrd’s complete music for keyboards has been made before now, and it is now unavailable, leaving this new recording by Pieter-Jan Belder in magnificent solitude. The collection begins with two discs of pieces for organ, played on a trio of Dutch instruments chosen for their varied colours and sizes. CD3 and 4 contains the pieces to be found in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, of which Belder made the first ever complete recording for Brilliant Classics. The last three discs are dedicated to My Lady Nevells Booke, the beautifully preserved collection which most comprehensively preserves his contribution to keyboard literature.

CONTENTS:

• Byrd: John come kiss me now
• Byrd: Pavan MB16a
• Byrd: Galiard MB16b
• Byrd: Pavana, BK 60a 'Ph. Tr.'
• Byrd: Galliard, BK 60b
• Byrd: Lady Monteagle's Pavan
• Byrd: A Ground, BK9
• Byrd: The Queen's Alman
• Byrd: If My Complaints
• Byrd: Pavana "The Earle of Salisbury"
• Byrd: Galliards, BK15b / c
• Byrd: Susanna fair
• Byrd: An Alman, BK117
• Byrd: Echo Pavan and Galliard in G major, No. 5
• Byrd: Pavan, BK76
• Byrd: Galliard, BK77
• Byrd: The Bells
• Byrd: Robbin Hood, MBV63
• Byrd: Pavan & Galliard, BK100
• Byrd: A Praeludium, BK116
• Byrd: Ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, BK58
• Byrd: Three French Corantos
• Byrd: O quam gloriosum est regnum
• Byrd: ….Secunda pars, BK120
• Byrd: Go from my window, BK79
• Byrd: A Horne Pype, BK39
• Byrd: Pavana Lachrymæ
• Byrd: Galiarda, BK55 (Harding set by Byrd)
• Byrd: Paven, BK73a
• Byrd: Galiard, BK73b
• Byrd: A Grounde, BK43
• Byrd: A Pavion, BK23a
• Byrd: Galliard, BK23b
• Byrd: A fancy
• Byrd: If My Complaints
• Byrd: Pavan, BK33a
• Byrd: Galliard, BK33b
• Byrd: Care for thy Soule, MBLV52
• Byrd: Galliard in C major 'Mistress Mary Brownlow'
• Byrd: Paven, BK72a
• Byrd: Galliard, BK72b
• Byrd: Parludam, BK115
• Byrd: A Ground, BK86
• Byrd: Lavolta, MB91
• Byrd: Pavan, BK99a
• Byrd: Galliard, BK99c
• Byrd: Quadran Pavan, MB70a
• Byrd: The Quadran Galliard, MB70b
• Byrd: The Hunt's up
• Byrd: Pavana, BK4a
• Byrd: Galliarda, BK4b
• Byrd: Prelude in A minor
• Byrd: Fantasia, BK13
• Byrd: Pavan in D BK52a
• Byrd: Galliard in D Minor, MB52b
• Byrd: Fantasia in G major
• Byrd: Wolsey's Wilde
• Byrd: Ut mi re, BK65
• Byrd: O Mistrys Myne
• Byrd: The Ghost
• Byrd: Sir John Gray’s Galliard
• Byrd: Gypsies Round
• Byrd: Monsieur´s Alman
• Byrd: Malt’s come down
• Byrd: A Medley
• Byrd: Pavana Delight
• Byrd: Galliarda [Delight], BK5b
• Byrd: Miserere a3
• Byrd: Miserere a4
• Byrd: Callino casturame
• Byrd: Pavan Bray, BK59a
• Byrd: Gailliard Bray
• Byrd: Doctor Bulls my selfe - A Gigge
• Byrd: Prelude, MB24
• Byrd: Galliarda [Bray], BK59b
• Byrd: A Gigg, BK22
• Byrd: Prelude, MB24
• Byrd: Pavan, BK101
• Byrd: Corranto
• Byrd: Fortune, BK6
• Byrd: Alman, BK11
• Byrd: Galliard, BK53
• Byrd: Monsieur´s Alman
• Byrd: Alman, BK89
• Byrd: La Volta
• Byrd: In Nomine, BK51
• Byrd: Prelude, MB1
• Byrd: Fantasia MB63
• Byrd: Christe qui Lux
• Byrd: Fantasia, MBLV55
• Byrd: In Nomine, BK51
• Byrd: Ut re mi fa sol la
• Byrd: Gloria tibi Trinitas
• Byrd: A Ground, BK9
• Byrd: Prelude & Fantasia in A Minor, BK12&13
• Byrd: The Queen's Alman
• Byrd: Voluntary for my Lady Nevell
• Byrd: Pavan Lachrymae, BK54
• Byrd: Fantasia MB62
• Byrd: Fantasia 'A Lesson of Voluntaire'
• Byrd: Miserere (I), BK66
• Byrd: Miserere (II), BK67
• Byrd: Ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, BK58
• Byrd: Ut re mi fa sol la
• Byrd: A Verse of Two Parts
• Byrd: A Fancie in D minor, BK46
• Byrd: Salvator Mundi, BK68
• Byrd: Salvator Mundi, BK69
• Byrd: A Voluntary, BK27
• Byrd: Clarifica me, BK47
• Byrd: Clarifica me, BK48
• Byrd: Clarifica me, BK49
• Byrd: Prelude and Fantasia in C major, BK24&25
• Byrd: My Ladye Nevells Booke

William Byrd's work stands out above all for the variety of genres and structural principles. This is particularly evident in his unique keyboard music. The influence that Byrd also had on the continental development of piano music remains remarkable. To commemorate the quadricentenary of Byrd's death, this album presents a special collection of the works of Byrd as well as two of his close contemporaries, by his long-time mentor Thomas Tallis (c. 1505-1585) and the younger Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625).

With William Byrd, Friederike Chylek follows up on her last albums Byrd –Keyboard works (OC1724) From Byrd To Byrd (OC1704) and Time stands still (OC1864). Friederike Chylek plays on an organ by Johann Christoph Leu, Klosterkirche Rheinau, 1715 and on a harpsichord by Boccalari, Napoli 1699, restored by Matthias Griewisch, 2019.

The heyday of English consort music coincides with the exciting change in style from musical Renaissance to early Baroque between 1580 and 1630. William Byrd and his successors played a decisive role in shaping it with sacred and secular songs, fantasies and dances. This production on the 400th anniversary of William Byrd's death shows how diverse and colourful the repertoire of consort music is. On the one hand, the English composers impress with sophisticated compositional art, on the other hand, they take up popular music of their time. The result is musical atmospheres that reflect the deep melancholy, pious confidence and plump joie de vivre of Shakespeare's time.

Quatuor Avium presents here a representative selection of compositions in an alternative instrumentation.

The only complete available recording of a landmark in Elizabethan keyboard music. With a huge catalogue of Brilliant Classics recordings to his credit, Pieter-Jan Belder has won particular praise for his ambitious project to record the complete Fitzwilliam Virginal Book), a treasury of English keyboard music from the late Elizabethan and early Jacobean era. Now he focuses his attention on the greatest English composer of that age, with a volume dedicated to William Byrd, and to his largest single collection of music for the keyboard.

My Ladye Nevells Booke embraces the most popular genres of its day. Its contents are typical fare for English Renaissance composers: dances, variation sets, marches, contrapuntal fantasies and programmatic pieces, and the repertory comes from a period beginning in the mid 1560s. Byrd makes each of these genres his own with consummate ingenuity; the variety and the beauty of the collection as a whole rewards players and listeners alike. The CD booklet contains an extensive essay on My Ladye Nevells Booke by Jon Baxendale, who is co-editor of the latest edition of the score.