Holst Singers - London

Byrd & Bruckner

On the surface Byrd & Bruckner inhabited vastly different worlds yet I suspect they shared an understanding of heaven, earth and the role of humankind. That may be fanciful, but certainly both men had deep convictions and a common faith, and both possessed the compositional gift of conjuring out of thin air (and a handful of voices) a musical vision of glory, while retaining simplicity.

With the motets and the movements of the mass interspersed we experience the contrasts, but in many ways these works form a surprisingly coherent ‘whole’.