Mishka Rushdie Momen - Reformation: Keyboard Works by William Byrd, Orlando Gibbons, John Bull & Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck

(Hyperion Records, 2024)

There are two things to unpack here: the artist and the repertoire. British pianist Mishka Rushdie Momen boasts a large and unruly repertoire ranging from John Bull to Luciano Berio, from William Byrd to Vijay Iyer. She is egalitarian to genre and period. Momen is just getting started on her discography with her debut with her 2019 recording Variations (Somm Recordings) and her recordings in collaboration with others: Steven Isserlis’ British Solo Cello Music (Hyperion Records, 2021) and Mozart Piano Concertos For One, Two And Three Pianos (Somm Recordings, 2018). Momen studied with Joan Havill and Imogen Cooper at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. She also studied with Richard Goode, and at the Kronberg Academy with Sir András Schiff, who has sponsored her in recital and orchestral dates across the USA and Europe.

Momen’s recording Reformation shines light on an often neglected slice of the late Renaissance, the piano music of British composers William Byrd, Orlando Gibbons, and John Bull and the Dutch composer Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck. What these composers have in common is being about a generation ahead of the high Baroque of Bach, Handel, and Scarlatti, straddling the Renaissance and Baroque periods. They composed their keyboard music on a virginal, an instrument from the harpsichord family. A virginal is a smaller and simpler instrument than the harpsichord that came later. It is rectangular or polygonal and has a single string per note (as opposed to multiple strings), running more or less parallel to the keyboard, on the long side of the case. Many,of the instruments were made without legs, to be placed on a table for playing. Later versions were made with their own stands.

Consider these miniatures as the music of the English Reformation period (1510- 1648): the time of Shakespeare, Thomas Cromwell, and Henry VIII (roughly). The pieces are comparable to Domenico Scarlatti’s Keyboard Sonatas with a decidedly British flavor. Pianist Kit Armstrong recently release William Byrd · John Bull—The Visionaries of Piano Music (Deutsche Grammophon, 2021) to which the present performances may be compared. Where Armstrong’s authority with the material is muscular and informed, Momen’s is delicate and contemplative. That being said, both approach John Bull’s “My Grief” similarly. Momen focuses on articulation and tone precision while Armstrong grasps the ebb and flow pathos of the piece, coaxing it along to consonant resolution. On Byrd’s “The Bells” Momen approaches pensively, gaining momentum and command. Armstrong’s method on the same piece again slowly grabs the emotional center. Both pianists perform the busy last part with brio and robust joy.

It is Momen that seizes the day with her punctilious and precise Gibbons. “Welcome Home” is welcoming attentive while brief, where “Whoop, Do Me No Harm, Good Man” smacks of reason and gentle persuasion. Sweelinck’s single contribution, “Ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la a 4 voci” is a study that winks to Bach in the future. If a listener finds much of the piano repertoire inaccessible or is just not “pretty enough” they need look to further than these fine performances by this young British talent.