Hyperion Records

In the FVB, a marginal note indicates that this A minor prelude belongs with the youthful fantasia in the same key (BK13), and indeed it could well date from the 1560s. However, the two works were not copied out together, the fantasia occuring nearly a hundred pages earlier (as No 52). Moreover, sources copied by two of Byrd’s pupils do not confirm that the two belong together since the fantasia survives without the prelude in Tomkins and the prelude survives without the fantasia in Weelkes. Nothing therefore proves that Byrd was responsible for linking the two works. For this organ version I have placed it before another early voluntary, BK27, whose first half is in a compatible mode. It may be heard again, preceding BK13 (as suggested by the FVB), and on various different instruments at high pitch. This short piece is thus presented five times in this recording.

from notes by Davitt Moroney © 1999