William Byrd has been core to the Sixteen’s repertoire since the group’s inception and, in this year, the 400th anniversary of his death, he is the natural focus of their annual Choral Pilgrimage. Byrd’s genius is perennial, but the particular interest in the programme that conductor Harry Christophers has so meticulously put together is the interlinking of works by Dutch and Flemish composers who specifically influenced Byrd, as well as two new pieces commissioned from Dobrinka Tabakova in memorial tribute.
Byrd’s Arise Lord Into Thy Rest and Turn Our Captivity O Lord appeared in his last publication, the 1611 volume, Psalmes, Songs and Sonnets, translations of Latin texts by the Catholic Richard Verstegan and smuggled into England by him. It was these that Tabakova set, creating companion pieces to those of Byrd, with the old preceding the new in each instance. Taking Byrd’s motif of a rising fifth in Arise Lord, but eschewing his polyphonic treatment, Tabakova embroidered her chords with a high melismatic, almost improvisatory, soprano solo line, beautifully sung by Julie Cooper. In Turn Our Captivity O Lord, Byrd – never predictable – brought a spring and change of pace into the music for the words “with jollity”; tellingly, in Tabakova’s setting – its often eastern-sounding ornamentation in the unison soprano line heard over more static but sometimes pungent harmonies – she opted to treat this as “with joy”, infusing the music’s earlier keening nature with a warm radiance.
