Essential Byrd
Together with his colleague Thomas Tallis, William Byrd (c1539–1623) was one of England's greatest renaissance composers. Employed in Elizabeth I's Chapel Royal, Byrd wrote music reflecting the duality of a reign in which public Anglican worship and private Catholicism co-existed uneasily. Magnificent, large-scale Latin anthems sit alongside simple, vernacular motets in Byrd's broad output, each reflecting the distinctive voice and skill of their composer.
Read more…The Reformation was a fault-line through English music. The elaborate counterpoint and dense polyphonic textures of sacred music were immediately replaced by more functional, English-language settings. But Byrd, like Tallis before him, excelled in each style, and the more fluid, privately (if not publically) permissive environment of Elizabeth I's court gave him the freedom to explore both.
The result is an unusually varied output. On one hand you have the monumental Latin motets – the intricate prayers 'Infelix Ego' and 'Tribue Domine' and the more intimate Mass-settings, possibly intended for private or maybe even secret worship – and on the other the Anglican music – the arresting, declamatory directness of 'Sing Joyfully' or The Great Service.
Unlike Tallis, Byrd also excelled in instrumental genres. His keyboard and consort works are the product of a skilled contrapuntalist, but also of a composer with a lighter side. Variations and arrangements of popular songs sit alongside the complex intellectual exercises of the Fantasias and In Nomines. Together they add up to a rich portrait of an exceptional era in English music.
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