To call William Byrd and John Bull "visionaries of piano music," as pianist Kit Armstrong does here, may be taking it a bit far, but it's not out of the question to perform English Renaissance keyboard music on the piano. Glenn Gould used to do so from time to time, and when the music of Byrd and especially Bull was first being unearthed, the piano was the default. It's likely, however, that the short pieces here have never received performances as detailed as these. Armstrong nicely differentiates the sober and classical ...
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To call William Byrd and John Bull "visionaries of piano music," as pianist Kit Armstrong does here, may be taking it a bit far, but it's not out of the question to perform English Renaissance keyboard music on the piano. Glenn Gould used to do so from time to time, and when the music of Byrd and especially Bull was first being unearthed, the piano was the default. It's likely, however, that the short pieces here have never received performances as detailed as these. Armstrong nicely differentiates the sober and classical Byrd from the wildly virtuosic Bull, whose music still has a distinctly experimental feel at a distance of four centuries. His execution of Bull's parallel runs is brilliant, and there's a delightfully fantasy-like quality to the variation sets. More generally, there's the kind of X factor here that comes from a performer's total commitment to and enthusiasm for a body of music, with all kinds of striking details. The album is beautifully recorded, and for all except those to whom...
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Add this copy of William Byrd, John Bull: The Visionaries of Piano Music to cart. $42.28, new condition, Sold by Entertainment by Post - UK rated 3.0 out of 5 stars, ships from BRISTOL, SOUTH GLOS, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2021 by Deutsche Grammophon.
Add this copy of William Byrd & John Bull: the Visionaries of Piano to cart. $42.69, new condition, Sold by Revaluation Books rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Exeter, DEVON, UNITED KINGDOM, published 2021 by DG.