Phantasm - William Byrd, Richard Mico: Still Music of the Spheres (1997) CD-Rip

The performances on this CD come as a revelation. William Byrd is a great and vivacious composer. Richard Mico is more than a museum novelty. I had some lingering doubts, based on earnest but amateurish performances heard in the past. Phantasm brings all the virtuosity of a major string quartet to these consort fantasies and pavanes: perfect tuning, incisiveness bow work, highly individuated phrasing, judiciously varied tempi and uses of rubato. Above all, a heightened sense of the total piece of music, something more than a pleasant flow of notes. A quick tour of the sample feature on this page will be worth more than a thousand and one of my words. And this Byrd in the shopping cart is worth all the Bushes extant.