FLORA GAVE ME FAIREST FLOWER

John Rutter's Cambridge Singers bring consistent unanimity of ensemble and a natural expressive feeling to this very attractive program of madrigals. Perhaps the first group, devoted to love and marriage, may be thought rather too consistently mellifluous; but the second, 'Madrigals of times and season', is nicely contrasted, with the clean articulation of Morley's Now is the month of Maying made the more telling by the lightness of the vocal production. John Wilbye's lovely Draw on sweet night, which follows, makes a perfect contrast. After two items about 'Fairies, spirits and conceits', the concert closes in a mood of moving Elizabethan melancholy with a group devoted to mourning and farewell. Superb recording in a most flattering acoustic makes this collection the more enjoyable, though one to be dipped into rather than heard all at once.

1. Thomas WEELKES: Hark, all ye lovely saints above   
2. William BYRD: Though Amaryllis dance in green   
3. John BENNET: Round about in a fair ring   
4. Thomas TOMKINS: Adieu, ye city-prisoning towers   
5. Thomas WILBYE: Flora gave me fairest flowers   
6. Thomas VAUTOR: Sweet Suffolk owl   
7. Thomas WEELKES: As Vesta was from Latmos hill descending   
8. William BYRD: Lullaby   
9. William BYRD: This sweet and merry month of May   
10. Thomas MORLEY: Now is the month of maying   
11. John FARMER: A little pretty bonny lass   
12. Thomas MORELY: Fyer, fyer!   
13. Thomas TOMKINS: Too much I once lamented   
14. Thomas MORLEY: My bonny lass she smileth   
15. Thomas WEELKES: Ha ha! this world doth pass   
16. Michael EAST: Quick, quick, away, dispatch   
17. Orlando GIBBONS: Dainty fine bird   
18. John DOWLAND: Come again! Sweet love doth now invite   
19. Thomas VAUTOR: Mother, I will have a husband   
20. Thomas WILBYE: Draw on, sweet night   
21. Robert RAMSEY: Sleep, fleshly birth   
22. Thomas WILBYE: Weep, weep, mine eyes   
23. Thomas WEELKES: Death hath deprived me   
24. Orlando GIBBONS: The silver swan   
25. Thomas WILBYE: Adieu, sweet Amaryllis