William Byrd: Complete Consort Music

William Byrd, a serious candidate for the title of Greatest English Composer Ever, is known primarily for his religious music. But he was also an important composer of secular songs, keyboard works, and consort music. This disc brings together everything he wrote for a consort of viols, all of it performed magnificently by the Phantasm ensemble. The vinegary tone of the viola da gamba gives these works a lovely and somewhat ghostly flavor.