I recently claimed that I had, but that claim isn’t quite true. There’s one anthem that I’ve never sung, and it’s probably the least performed in the book: Byrd’s This day Christ was born<\/i>. The problem is that it really is specific to Christmas Day. I haven’t even heard it performed by others. I noted this back in 2004<\/a>, when I performed another rarity: Let God arise<\/i> by Weelkes, little done I suspect because of its length. My near-complete coverage of this book probably has two causes: the choir at Little St Mary’s Church, Cambridge had copies and made a lot of use of the shorter anthems, and the Erleigh Cantors have systematically been exploring the longer ones.<\/p>\n I have a copy of another anthology of Tudor anthems, edited by Lionel Pike and bought from the closing down sale of a rather short-lived sheet music shop in Bristol. It doesn’t seem to have caught on, despite containing some of the more obvious omissions from the Oxford volume, such as Byrd’s Laudibus in Sanctis<\/i> and Tallis’ O Lord, give thy Holy Spirit<\/i>. I’ve never actually sung from it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I recently claimed that I had, but that claim isn’t quite true. There’s one anthem that I’ve never sung, and it’s probably the least performed in the book: Byrd’s This day Christ was born. The problem is that it really … Continue reading