Our June Recording of the Month celebrates a pair of 400ths by way of the great Elizabethan composers William Byrd and Thomas Weelkes.

Thanks to the King’s Singers’ splendidly programmed album – with sterling support from viol consort Fretwork – we get to hear not just the famous “Father of English Music” but his younger colleague, whose personality couldn’t have been more different.

Clive Paget caught up with King’s Singer bass Jonathan Howard to learn a bit about both men, including why the notoriously bibulous Weelkes deserves to be better known, and why you should never, ever pee on someone’s head from the organ loft.

Everyone knows it’s the 400th anniversary of the death of William Byrd, but what made you decide to commemorate Weelkes on the same album?

Well, they are both giants from the British Renaissance. But there was so much happening in the Byrd year that we thought, “Okay, the King’s Singers like not just doing things in the conventional way. So how can we find an interesting point of difference here and show that there’s a richness to Byrd’s output that extends way beyond his own music, as well as to reveal links between the two composers.

[caption id="attachment_307238"...