Album: William Byrd, Complete Consort Music – Phantasm (Linn)

From the unhurried ease of the "Fantasia a3" to the final cadence of "Prelude and Goodnight Ground a5", Phantasm's new recording is intoxicating.

The disc spans more than 40 years of Byrd's life, incorporating robust, rustic dances, madrigalian allusions to bird calls and decorous versions of "Te lucis..." and "Christe redemptor omnium". In three, four, five and six parts, the blend, balance, ensemble and tuning is faultless, the sound sweet but never cloying.