Phantasm - William Byrd: Complete Consort Music (2010)

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Phantasm - William Byrd: Complete Consort Music (2010)

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The music of William Byrd has been something of an obsession for the members of Phantasm, featuring on their early recordings Still Music of the Spheres (1996) and Byrd Song (1998), as well as their 2004 collection The Four Temperaments. Here they return again to the Elizabethan composer with the benefit of nearly two decades’ performing experience, to gather together his complete output for viol consort, bar the fragmentary or spurious works.

Spanning some 40 years of Byrd’s life, this is a condense but subtly varied album of styles: courtly dances interleave with cryptic spiritual and devotional works – fleeting expressions of the recusant Catholic’s unwavering faith – and variations on popular Tudor songs, like the magnificent tour de force, Browning. Among the finest works are the Fantasias, which range from lush-textured six-part tapestries to the laconic three-part pieces, haiku-like in their poetic expressivity. Throughout them Byrd retains the ‘Angelicall and Divine’ qualities that his contemporaries remarked upon – qualities that Phantasm captures perfectly in this collection.

The ensemble’s director, Laurence Dreyfus (himself something of a Renaissance man), combines rigorous intellect with sensitive musicianship. He leads his colleagues through a series of urbane discourses exploring the abstract, cerebral nature of Byrd’s consort music, beyond its earthy, folk-influenced style. Ensemble and intonation are flawless; keen rhythms and feather-light bowing give a lightness of touch to the dances. The recorded balance is acutely judged, too, ensuring that Byrd’s contrapuntal lines are always distinct. Listeners with surround-sound are placed thrillingly in the centre of these musical conversations.

If it’s the complete consort works you’re after, Fretwork’s 1994 disc on Virgin Classics makes a strong competitor – a recording which, despite its nearly 20 years of age, stands the test of time superbly well. Fretwork’s approach is more visceral, tempos are predominantly slower and the timbre is richer, darker, thanks to the resonant recording and some robust playing from the bass viols. By comparison, Phantasm’s approach is rather more agile and airy and, with the focus thrown more on the treble and tenor viols, the consort sound has greater luminescence. Readers familiar with the ensemble’s other CDs may find these performances more restrained, more introspective, perhaps more rationally controlled than before, but the approach is fitting for Byrd’s terse, pellucid style and the melancholy spirit that haunted his age.

Review by Kate Bolton, Classical-Music.com

William Byrd's music for viol consort, relatively early in the history of the genre and lacking the chromatic strokes of that by Dowland, has received less attention than his choral masterworks that seem to embody the religious divisions of 17th century England. In fact it seems to resemble his choral music in its overall mood, which is sober, a bit inward, and intellectually rigorous. Even in dances rooted in popular origins Byrd subjects his themes to little contrapuntal complications. Musicologist Lawrence Dreyfus, leader of the multinational viol consort group Phantasm, suggests a detailed chronology for Byrd's consort music in his booklet notes but then ignores it in favor of a program mixed up by type. In short, Byrd wrote pieces based on sacred vocal models, some rather severe dance pieces, variation sets, and, later in life, some fantasias independent of vocal models. This recording has the restrained, slightly tortured quality that seems to slay British audiences every time and leave others wondering what the fuss is about, but there's no denying it's a more-than-competent complete survey of Byrd's consort music, brought in at just one second less than a CD's usual 80-minute limit, and that it has quite a deep, meditative quality if heard in the right frame of mind. The Super Audio sound from Germany's Linn label may be the main attraction; each viol seems to purr and to die away in a rainbow of colors.

Review by James Manheim, Allmusic.com

Building on the scholarly work of Oliver Neighbor, Laurence Dreyfus, founder-leader of Phantasm, has assembled 26 consort pieces by Byrd, preferring to contrast one with another, rather than ordering them chronologically or by instrumental forces, while still providing listeners with the means to reorder them as they please. The playing is quite simply divine. Thanks, too, to Linn's engineers, we are able to experience with sparkling clarity Byrd's remarkable chamber music legacy.

Review by Julie Ann Sadie, Gramophone

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Phantasm - William Byrd: Complete Consort Music (2010)

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Phantasm - William Byrd: Complete Consort Music (2010)

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Phantasm - William Byrd: Complete Consort Music (2010)

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