Robin Blaze and Concordia reveal an area of Byrd’s output less familiar to the general public than his sacred music. The subject matter of these songs is wide-ranging, from a triumphant celebration of an Elizabethan anniversary, Rejoice unto the Lord, to thetwo laments on the death of Sir Philip Sidney, the quietly poignant funeral song Come to me, grief, for ever, and the deeply-felt sonnet O that most rare breast, the text attributed to Sir Edward Dyer, one of Sidney’s circle of poets. A third lament, Ye sacred muses, was Byrd’s personal, most moving tribute to his great master: ‘Tallis is dead, and music dies’.

The performance brings out two seemingly contradictory points. One is the importance Byrd gives to the soloist’s line. He admires the fine natural voice, so rare, he says, ‘as there is not one among a thousand, that hath it…’. He would have admired the voice and the art of Robin Blaze, whose sympathetic interpretation of Byrd’s melodic style, the rests, the patterning of the phrases and the syncopation, is remarkable.

The second point is the way in which viols and lute become an integral part of ‘a carol for New Yeares Day’ – O God that guides the cheerful sun. Their imitation of the movements of the voice in the little tableau of the old lady tumbling over on top of the hill, spilling her lapful of skulls, is equally delightful (An aged dame). And the sprightly rhythms in All as a sea brought home the analogy between human life and life on the ocean wave.