Lullay myn lyking is a slightly more traditional form of the text from yesterday’s piece, but with a far more modern arrangement.  This particular text dates from a 15th-century manuscript (from which the lyrics to Adam Lay Y Bounden and I sing of a Maiden also derive), but there is no known tune for it.  Yesterday’s setting was a traditional Basque melody, but today’s is composed by Philip Lawson, of the King’s Singers.  I should probably give you the King’s Singers recording, but you are going to be getting them later this week for another piece, and while they are really peerless I just prefer the sound of a female voice for the ‘lullay’ solo after verse three. A boy-soprano sound, no matter how beautifully produced, doesn’t have the same richness to it, I think.

So instead, you are getting a recording by TENET vocal artists, which is perhaps not so technically perfect, but is nonetheless very beautiful.  I enjoy the interactions between the singers in this recording, too, and I do love the trio of female voices for the ‘mickle melody’ verse.