This selection, culled from Thomas Tomkins’s ‘lessons of worthe’, is an exciting foray into some of the darker corners of the English virginal repertoire. Bertrand Cuiller borrows his title from words found on the flyleaves of a manuscript containing works by Tomkins, leaving posterity a list of the contemporaneous keyboard works Tomkins thought most worthy of study, rich in suggestions from the oeuvres of Bull, Byrd and Tallis but also including several of his own lesser-known pieces. The list offers descriptions rather than hard copies of these greatest hits, so in many cases it takes some detective work and speculation to decide exactly what the Worcester-based composer had in mind.

The works chosen by Cuiller exercise the harpsichordist’s three instruments, a delicious array of 1579 harpsichord (resident at the Victoria and Albert Museum), a claviorganum (which couples a harpsichord and organ from the same keyboard) and a small Italian harpsichord with a 4ft stop (which produces a twinkly, almost toy-piano-like sound). The wealth of colour is welcome, and Cuiller’s masterful playing on the claviorganum makes one wish more harpsichordists would explore the instrument. Cuiller deftly manages the wild timbral contrasts of this hybrid instrument, using it to emphasise and clarify the counterpoint.

The challenge in this repertoire lies in finessing the subdivisions of the basic note values, as composers build up ever more elaborate iterations of their material. Cuiller has the technique to fit these flourishes into a solid, unhurried framework, maintaining the vigour of the dance rhythms which underpin so many of these works. He also has the imagination and essential command of the virginal idiom to make music that can come alive with an almost folksy directness. A short piece written for beginning keyboard students and performed on the instrument with a crystalline 4ft stop is worth the cost of the recording as a whole, a delightful gem rendered with sparkle.