Glenn Gould - A Consort of Musicke Bye William Byrde & Orlando Gibbons

"The two northern masters represented by this disc, though united by a distinctively and imperishable English brand of conservatism, are not, all puns intended, byrds of a feather. They share an idiom but not an attitude; Gibbons plays the introspective Gustav Mahler to Byrd's more flamboyant Richard Strauss. For this reason, perhaps, Gibbons, though a virtuoso of repute among his fellows, never shows to best advantage in instrumental music. Byrd, on the other hand, though the creator of incomparable music for the voice, is also a patron saint of keyboard writing. He is, indeed, one of the 'naturals' – in his music, like that of Scarlatti, Chopin and Scriabin, no unfelicitous phrases need apply – and all of his prolific output for the keyboard is distinguished by a remarkable insight into the ways in which the human hand can most productively be employed upon it." – Glenn Gould