Reformation: Keyboard works by William Byrd, Orlando Gibbons, John Bull & Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck

If Bach can be performed on a modern piano, why not 16th- and 17th-century English (and Dutch) keyboard music? The galliards, fantasias, pavans and preludes of Byrd, Gibbons, Bull, Sweelinck and other composers of that time were originally scored for organ, virginals or harpsichord, but it’s clear from this engaging album that they benefit from the piano’s ability to highlight voice parts, provide textural clarity and offer dynamic possibilities. As Mishka Rushdie Momen explains to Apple Music Classical: “I really appreciate the piano’s greater resonance and its huge range of sonorities, which has an almost vocal quality to it, which I think is in keeping with the sort of vocal tradition from which a lot of this music stems.” Reformation, named after the tumultuous religious period in 16th-century England, at the tail end of which much of this music was composed, feels like an important moment in historic performance. Mishka Rushdie Momen’s playing exudes a deep love of and intimate acquaintance with early articulation and ornamentation, coupling it with a modern sensibility: a luminous touch, pianistic precision and, in particular, a restrained expressive instinct that nevertheless stays true to the spirit of each piece. “I’ve tried to remain true to their emotional natures,” says Rushdie Momen, “so for some of the really intimate dances, I use the soft pedal quite a lot and try to keep the colour palette in a very intimate range.” Rushdie Momen shapes Gibbons’ introspective, labyrinthine Fantazia of Foure Parts with breathtaking poise, its meandering lines given meaning, its whole lent a soaring dramatic arc. “This might be my favourite work by Gibbons,” she says, “the interweaving of the counterpoint is so extraordinary, and it’s such an inward-looking work in a way. It starts with a solitary line and then grows out of it. It’s beautiful and so seamlessly unfolding. I feel he really takes the listener by the hand and guides them through the work.” The album begins with four works by William Byrd, one of three acknowledged masters of choral music alongside Tallis and Gibbons. For Rushdie Momen, Byrd is “the father figure of the four composers on the disc”, and alights on Pavana Lachrymae, his setting of John Dowland’s popular song “Flow, my tears”. “Byrd captures the lyricism of Dowland’s song. And then, at the same time, he also shows us what’s so magical about the keyboard—its ability to do this wonderful figuration and have these beautiful harmonies at the same time. I think it’s the perfect introductory piece to people who might not be familiar with this repertoire.” However, for sheer virtuosic, fizzing energy, John Bull had few equals. His variations on the ballad Walsingham, quoted in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, says Rushdie Momen, “are very exuberant and really capture Bull’s qualities as a virtuoso. And I think maybe that’s a quality that people often forget about Renaissance keyboard music because, especially if they’ve come to it through the choral works, people might not be aware that this music could be really sort of thrilling and exciting and extrovert.” Tucked in amongst the English repertoire is a work by the contemporaneous Dutch composer Sweelinck, symbolising the close links at the time between the Netherlands and England. Built entirely on rising and falling scales of six notes, Ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la a 4 voci is typical of Sweelinck’s exquisite craft. “I used to be very jealous listening to harpsichordist friends of mine practising Sweelinck when I was at school,” says Rushdie Momen, “and somehow at that time, it didn’t occur to me that this was music that was available to me.” There is little doubt that Reformation marks the beginning of Rushdie Momen’s adventures in English Renaissance music, a world that is still relatively unknown to modern audiences. Rushdie Momen has her theory on why that might be: “Perhaps people feel that because these composers lived in such unstable and troubling times, that their music must be like that as well. But this music is so joyful, and so open and transcendent,” she says, “and perhaps we could do more to show people that side of it.”