Four distinct musical personalities—or ‘temperaments'—are represented: the dissonant Robert Parsons, the cool Ferrabosco the Elder, the warm and sanguine Thomas Tallis, and the polar opposites of ecstasy and melancholy of William Byrd. BBC Radio 3's Andrew McGregor said of this recording of the Mass for four voices played on viols alone: ‘For stylistic insight and subtlety … ironically one of the most satisfying performances of Byrd's Mass.'