The Early Byrd - I Fagiolini

The Early Byrd – early works by Byrd for voices, viols and virginals

I Fagiolini with Fretwork (viols) and Sophie Yates (virginals)

This series began in response to a plea in Early Music by scholar John Milsom for more interestingly programmed recordings of Byrd than the usual ‘Three Masses plus…’ It focuses on his early repertoire for both voices and instruments and places the great six-voice works of the 1575 Cantiones Sacrae with his monumental eight-voice ‘Ad Dominum cum tribularer’. (The CD was followed by a second, The Caged Byrd, focusing on the works written in his middle period, a time of great danger for Catholics in England such as Byrd.)

Domine secundum actum meum