Phantasm - Tye - Financial Times

It is said that when Elizabeth I rebuked Christopher Tye for playing music that contained “little delight to the ear”, he sent back word that “her eares were out of tune” and carried on regardless. Whether true or not, the story paints the elderly Tye as a cantankerous man. One would hardly think so from his music for viols. Sometimes plangent, often ebulliently uplifting, these are ever unpredictable pieces, which can switch from high mood to low, content to unease, on a sixpence. All are exquisitely played by Phantasm, directed by Laurence Dreyfus.