This release on the
Resonus Classics
label landed on classical best-seller lists in the autumn of 2024. A combination of factors seems to have put it there, the first being that the
Great Service
of
William Byrd
is one of the pinnacles of his compositional art, intricate but highly expressive. It is not unknown, certainly, but new and ambitious recordings of it are newsworthy, and this one is ambitious and distinctive. There is some evidence that wind and brass instruments were used in the performance of large choral works, and not only in England, and here, the vocal group
Alamire
and its director
David Skinner
give an idea of what this might have sounded like, with four members of the venerable
His Majestys Sagbutts and Cornetts
backing some of the sections of the
, while the rest are left to organist
Stephen Farr
. It is an interesting sound for the general listener, solemn and rich, and the best thing about this album is that the instrumental forces are beautifully integrated into the singing, and all the forces are exquisitely balanced. After the
are organ pieces from
Farr
and a variety of anthems in English, these sans brass and winds. The album, as a whole, gives deep insights into the nature of
Byrd
's English music without including many commonly performed pieces. It is a treasure, idiomatically recorded at All Hallows Gospel Oak church in London. ~ James Manheim