Classical CDs Weekly: Byrd, Cage and Rossini

Effortless Elizabethan polyphony, music inspired by stones and Swiss history

by Graham RicksonFriday, 22 July 2011

Phantasm: sumptuous in Byrd© Marco Borggreve

This week's chronologically varied selection includes instrumental music written by one of the giants of Elizabethan music and a baffling, beguiling work composed by a 20th-century maverick, inspired by a visit to a Japanese garden. There's also a splendid new recording of an Italian opera which opens with one of the world's most famous tunes.

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