Byrd: My Ladye Nevells Booke

Belder, Pieter-Jan

96887

Of sources from the sixteenth century, My Ladye Nevells Booke is one of the most beautiful manuscripts to have come down to us. It is an oblong book that is sumptuously bound in red morocco leather, with a highly decorated cover that bears its one-time owner’s name on both its front and rear, a title that is still used. Its contents are inscribed with a style that is rarely seen elsewhere: noteheads are shaped as diamonds, and incredible care has been put into the calligraphy. Its contents contain the music of a single composer, William Byrd, and the book is the most important known source of his keyboard music.

William Byrd (c. 1540 – 4 July 1623) was an English composer of late Renaissance music. Considered among the greatest composers of the Renaissance, he had a profound influence on composers both from his native England and on the continent. On his death, he was reported in the records of the Chapel Royal as ‘the father of Music’. He wrote in many of the forms current in England at the time, including various types of sacred and secular polyphony, keyboard (the so-called Virginalist school), and consort music. His keyboard music is of the highest order, it includes dances like the Gaillard and Pavan, Voluntaries and sets of variations on songs.

Pieter-Jan Belder is one of the world’s foremost keyboard players, with an astonishing number of CDs to his name: the complete Scarlatti Sonatas, Bach keyboard works, Rameau, Soler, Duphly, Marais, CPE Bach, Corelli, Purcell, Telemann, the complete Fitzwilliam Virginal Book...to be continued. Critics praise his versatility, his innate feeling for style, his impeccable technique: “Superb keyboard artistry and consummate technique” (MusicWeb), “alive, fresh-sounding and thoroughly engaged..” (Fanfare), “The most vital Bach performances of the moment” (Volkskrant).

CD x 3

Brilliant Classics

7/4/23

5028421968872