A century of English song

Between them, the three recordings reviewed here lead us on a tour through English song from William Byrd to Henry Lawes. Quite by chance, the coverage is thoroughly comprehensive, taking in Dowland, Jones, Coprario, Lanier, Wilson and many others on the way. By chance, too, each disc is of such high quality that together they might be commended as a package for anyone wanting quick and easy access to the repertory. Three modern divas of the early-music world, Emma Kirkby, Emily Van Evera and Ellen Hargis, head these recitals, and their admirers will need no review to prompt them into making their purchases. They will not be disappointed by the results.

The first disc, William Byrd: Consort songs (Harmonia Mundi HMU 907383, rec 2004), must be reckoned one of the best all-Byrd recordings ever made. In it, Emma Kirkby and the viol consort Fretwork give us 12 songs, interspersed with a selection of consort music-a wise choice, since an unbroken run of consort songs can tire the ear. Wisely, too, they shun the most popular pieces in the repertory-Ye sacred muses, Come to me, grief, for ever, and the Lullaby-and concentrate instead on the best of the rest. Most of the pieces have been recorded at least once before, and there may be some connoisseurs who will rue the absence of the unknown, since so many Byrd songs still await their modern début. It must be said, though, that some of them (including the psalm settings) do not show Byrd in his best colours; so perhaps it's as well that this recital makes no room for them, merely for the sake of championing the obscure.

Byrd's songs can be categorized in various ways-by subject-matter, by idiom, by form, and by date of composition. This recital suggests a different two-way division: between songs that readily communicate their texts to an audience on a single hearing, and those that do not. First-time listeners to this disc will immediately warm to pieces from the first category, such as My mistress had a little dog, the Christmastide Out of the orient crystal skies, and the elegy for Sir Philip Sidney, O that most rare breast; all of them are easy to follow. Not even as fine an orator as Emma Kirkby, though, can instantly woo the listener with moralizing texts in multiple stanzas. In the past, some performers have sidestepped this issue by singing only a token verse or two from Byrd's 'serious' songs, throwing emphasis on the music rather than the words. Emma Kirkby does not; in every case, she sings either the complete poem or, in the case of pieces transmitted incomplete in the sources, as much of the poem as survives. As a result, there are lengthy tracks on this disc that make real demands on the listener; they include My mind to me a kingdom is (words by Sir Edward Dyer) and O you that hear this voice (words by Sidney). Falling into a separate category are those songs for which only a single stanza is known, and which on this CD give rise to the shortest tracks. The noble famous queen, a lament for Mary, Queen of Scots, uses music originally meant for the text 'While Phoebus used to dwell', and it now lacks its continuation stanzas (assuming it ever had any). Byrd's sole foray into the world of quantitative hexameters, the single-stanza Constant Penelope, is probably complete as it stands.

Fretwork on their own play Byrd's two mature six-part fantasias, together with the six-part pavan/galliard pair. The interpretations are slicker and more fleet-footed than in their 1989 recording of those same pieces. They also give us a real rarity: the four-voice fantasia no.3. This curious little piece survives incomplete in its original instrumental version, but Byrd reworked it as the motet In manus tuas, published in the 1605 Gradualia, and that allows the original fantasia to be reconstructed. Or so most authorities agree. David Pinto's booklet note for this new recording takes the opposite view...