Just heavenly. I really believe Byrd to be the "great" English composer, with all due respect to the many others that I love (Finzi, Vaughn-Williams, Howells to name a few)

We can only guess at the artistic standard which Byrd et al. heard in their times. It is certain that vocal placement, accent, and tonal aesthetic would have been quite different from those of our time, English or not. Some sources would suggest that attendance by singers (salaried, yet!) at their various establishments was often lax and their singing ill prepared if not disastrous. Others would attest to a higher standard - depending on time and place. Latin would have been, in England, pronounced more or less in accordance with English pronunciation of the time, not the quasi-Italian 'church-Latin' (a convention not more than 150 years old) to which we are accustomed. Pitch was different,varied widely, and remains a topic of debate. And, (a crucial difference) their ears were not attuned to the well-tempered standard which permeates the vocal & instrumental music of our time. Also, on all the music heard here the treble would have been sung by boys, whose timbre, despite the finest and most laudable attempts (such as here), cannot be matched by that of women. (And, I am NOT suggesting that women should not sing this music, nor that the timbre of women's voices is less than beautiful - merely making a technical observation: it's not the same sound.) Finally, it is distinctly possible that singers of the Renaissance (and other periods as well) did not approach this music with quite the same ideal of excruciatingly distilled refinement which we highly prize and delight in. [This documentary was a real treat! Thanks to Jeffrey for posting it.]

MJO, thanks for that excellent reflection. I hope that Byrd can hear the Tallis Scholars; they do a beautiful job.

Jeffrey, it is indeed a perfect case in point. It also illustrates unmet demand in the market, no? There are people out there thirsty for better music.