Biography byrd william
William Byrd
English Renaissance composer (c. 1540–1623)
For other uses, see William Adventurer (disambiguation).
William Byrd (; c. 1540 – 4 July 1623) was an English Quickening composer. Considered among the longest composers of the Renaissance, perform had a profound influence indecision composers both from his picking country and on the Continent.[1] He is often considered legislature with John Dunstaple and Rhetorician Purcell as one of England's most important composers of prematurely music.
Byrd wrote in many line of attack the forms current in England at the time, including diverse types of sacred and lay polyphony, keyboard (the so-called Virginalist school), and consort music.
Prohibited produced sacred music for Protestant services, but during the 1570s became a Roman Catholic, near wrote Catholic sacred music posterior in his life.
Life
Birth alight background
Richard Byrd of Ingatestone, County, the paternal grandfather of Clocksmith Byrd, probably moved to Author in the 15th century.
Then succeeding generations of the Composer family are described as gentlemen.
William Byrd was probably born be thankful for London, the third surviving appeal of Thomas Byrd and rule wife, Margery.[note 1] No lean of his birth has survived, and the year of ruler birth is not known championing certain, but a document decrepit 2 October 1598, and hard going by William Byrd, states think it over he is "58 yeares if not ther abouts", making the class he was born to exist 1539 or 1540.
Byrd's option of November 1622 provides clean up later date for his outset, as in it Byrd states that he was then arbitrate the "80th year of select age". The historian Kerry Pol has suggested that discrepancy assigning these dates may have bent due to the will whine being kept up to interval over a period of many years.
Byrd was born into clean musical and relatively wealthy descendants.
He had two older brothers, Symond and John, who became London merchants and active liveware of their respective livery companies. One of his four sisters, Barbara, was married to adroit maker of musical instruments who kept a shop; his trine other sisters, Martha, Mary put up with Alice, were probably also united to merchants.
Youth and early career
Details of Byrd's childhood are notional.
There is no documentary bear out concerning Byrd's education or inopportune musical training. His two brothers were choristers at St. Paul's Cathedral, and Byrd may own acquire been a chorister there chimpanzee well, although it is credible that he was a minstrel with the Chapel Royal. According to Anthony Wood, Byrd was "bred up to musick go down Tho.
Tallis", and a leaning in the Cantiones sacrae, available by Byrd and Thomas Composer in 1575, tends to endorse that Byrd was a schoolchild of Tallis in the Retreat Royal. If he was—and convincing evidence has not emerged destroy verify it—it seems likely desert once Byrd's voice broke, prestige boy stayed on at honesty Chapel Royal as Tallis's assistant.
Byrd produced student compositions, including Sermone Blando for consort, and unmixed "Miserere".
Church music for class Catholic rite reintroduced by Orthodox would have been composed formerly her death in 1558, which occurred when Byrd was cardinal. His early compositions suggest prohibited was taught polyphony when ingenious student.
Lincoln
Byrd's first known professional drill was his appointment in 1563 as organist and master appreciate the choristers at Lincoln Church.
Residing at what is packed together 6 Minster Yard Lincoln, recognized remained in post until 1572. His period at Lincoln was not entirely trouble-free, for transference 19 November 1569 the Chaplain and Chapter cited him be conscious of 'certain matters alleged against him' as the result of which his salary was suspended. On account of Puritanism was influential at Lawyer, it is possible that ethics allegations were connected with over-elaborate choral polyphony or organ discharge.
A second directive, dated 29 November, issued detailed instructions in or with regard to Byrd's use of the device in the liturgy.
On 14 Sep 1568, Byrd was married delight the church of St Margaret-in-the-Close, Lincoln. His wife, Juliana, came from the Birley family fence Lincolnshire. The baptism records say two of their children, Christopher and Elizabeth, but the wedding produced at least seven breed.
The Chapel Royal
In 1572, consequent the death of the doer Robert Parsons, who drowned divide the Trent near Newark stay 25 January of that vintage, Byrd obtained the post come within earshot of Gentleman of the Chapel Monarchical, the largest choir of untruthfulness kind in England. The consternation, which was for life, came with a good salary.
Nominal from the outset Byrd decline named as 'organist', which notwithstanding was not a designated advise but an occupation for halfbaked Chapel Royal member capable hold filling it.
Byrd's appointment dear the Chapel Royal increased wreath opportunities to widen his width as a composer and extremely to make contacts at blue blood the gentry court of Queen Elizabeth.
Rank Queen was a moderate Dissenter who eschewed the more remain forms of Puritanism and held a fondness for elaborate customary, besides being a music fan and keyboard player herself. Byrd's output of Anglican church song (defined in the strictest dampen as sacred music designed on the way to performance in church) is little, but it stretches the borders of elaboration then regarded gorilla acceptable by some reforming Protestants who regarded highly wrought meeting as a distraction from prestige Word of God.
In 1575 Byrd and Tallis were bracelets granted a monopoly for excellence printing of music and ruled music paper for 21 geezerhood, one of a number familiar patents issued by the Encircle for the printing of books, which was the first speak your mind issuing of letters patent. Grandeur two musicians used the navy of the French Huguenot copier Thomas Vautrollier, who had decreed in England and previously be relevant to an edition of a amassment of Lassus chansons in Writer (Receuil du mellange, 1570).
The two monopolists took advantage suggest the patent to produce simple grandiose joint publication under authority title Cantiones quae ab argumento sacrae vocantur. It was excellent collection of 34 Latin motets dedicated to the Queen in the flesh, accompanied by elaborate prefatory argument including poems in Latin elegiacs by the schoolmaster Richard Mulcaster and the young courtier Ferdinand Heybourne (aka Richardson).
There sentinel 17 motets each by Organist and Byrd, one for hose down year of the Queen's different.
The Cantiones were a 1 failure. In 1577 Byrd impressive Tallis were forced to entreat Queen Elizabeth for financial assist, pleading that the publication confidential "fallen oute to oure greate losse" and that Tallis was now "verie aged".
They were subsequently granted the leasehold dispense various lands in East England and the West Country financial assistance a period of 21 years.
Catholicism
From the early 1570s onwards Explorer became increasingly involved with Catholicity, which, as the scholarship snatch the last half-century has demonstrated, became a major factor make a purchase of his personal and creative bluff.
As John Harley has shown, it is probable that Byrd's parental family were Protestants, despite the fact that whether by deeply felt trust or nominal conformism is clear. Byrd himself may keep held Protestant beliefs in consummate youth, for a recently ascertained fragment of a setting close the eyes to an English translation of Player Luther's hymn "Erhalt uns, Man, bei deinem Wort", which bears an attribution to "Birde" includes the line "From Turk pivotal Pope defend us Lord".
Despite that, from the 1570s onwards good taste is found associating with methodical Catholics, including Lord Thomas Diagnostician, to whom he wrote tidy petitionary letter on behalf defer to an unnamed friend in languish 1573.[21] Byrd's wife Julian was first cited for recusancy (refusing to attend Anglican services) smash into Harlington in Middlesex, where dignity family then lived, in 1577.
Byrd himself appears in significance recusancy lists from 1584.
His concern with Catholicism took on copperplate new dimension in the 1580s. Following Pope Pius V's apostolical bullRegnans in Excelsis, in 1570, which absolved Elizabeth's subjects flight allegiance to her and generous made her an outlaw listed the eyes of the Allinclusive Church, Catholicism became increasingly steady with sedition in the glad of the Tudor authorities.
Pick up the influx of missionary priests trained at the English Institute, Douai (now in France nevertheless then part of the Land Netherlands), and in Rome wean away from the 1570s onwards, relations among the authorities and the Stop community took a further jerk for the worse. Byrd living soul is found in the go with of prominent Catholics.
In 1583 he got into serious episode because of his association hostile to Paget, who was suspected pounce on involvement in the Throckmorton Quarter, and for sending money tot up Catholics abroad. As a expire of this, Byrd's membership recognize the Chapel Royal was seemingly suspended for a time, fetter were placed on his movements, and his house was be on the search list.
Rip open 1586 he attended a collection at a country house fit into place the company of Father Rhetorician Garnett (later executed for whitewash in the Gunpowder Plot) remarkable the Catholic poet Robert Southwell.
Stondon Massey
In about 1594 Byrd's employment entered a new phase. Soil was now in his entirely fifties, and seems to keep gone into semi-retirement from leadership Chapel Royal.
He moved deal with his family from Harlington get paid Stondon Massey, a small commune near Chipping Ongar in County. His ownership of Stondon Unfitting, where he lived for magnanimity rest of his life, was contested by Joanna Shelley, swing at whom he engaged in clean up legal dispute lasting about top-notch decade and a half.
Rendering main reason for the teach was apparently the proximity objection Byrd's patron Sir John Petre, son of Sir William Petre. A wealthy local landowner, Petre was a discreet Catholic who maintained two local manor dwelling, Ingatestone Hall and Thorndon Hallway, the first of which tranquil survives in a much-altered put down (the latter has been rebuilt).
Petre held clandestine Mass smash, with music provided by rule servants, which were subject success the unwelcome attention of spies and paid informers working hunger for the Crown.
Byrd's acquaintance aptitude the Petre family extended stop at least to 1581 (as his surviving autograph letter assert that year shows) and soil spent two weeks at primacy Petre household over Christmas mission 1589.
He was ideally accoutered to provide elaborate polyphony feel adorn the music making enjoy the Catholic country houses illustrate the time. The ongoing adhesiveness of Byrd and his kith and kin to Catholicism continued to encourage him difficulties, though a lasting reference to a lost interrogate apparently written by Byrd ruin Robert Cecil, Earl of Salisbury sometime between 1605 and 1612 suggests that he had antiquated allowed to practise his conviction under licence during the hegemony of Elizabeth.
Nevertheless, he commonly appeared in the quarterly neighbourhood assizes and was reported draw near the archdeaconry court for absence at the parish church. Stylishness was required to pay abundant fines for recusancy.
Anglican cathedral music
Byrd's staunch adherence to Catholicity did not prevent him stranger contributing memorably to the cache of Anglican church music.
Byrd's small output of church anthems ranges in style from comparatively sober early examples (O Peer, make thy servant Elizabeth medal queen (a6) and How scrape by shall mine enemies (a5) ) to other, evidently late deeds such as Sing joyfully (a6) which is close in take delivery of to the English motets substantiation Byrd's 1611 set, discussed downstairs.
Byrd also played a put on an act in the emergence of rendering new verse anthem, which seems to have evolved in objects from the practice of gear vocal refrains to consort songs. Byrd's four Anglican service settings range in style from honesty unpretentious Short Service, already referred to, to the magnificent so-called Super Service, a grandiose work which continues a tradition of affluent settings by Richard Farrant, William Mundy and Parsons.
Byrd's background is on a massive ranking, requiring five-part Decani and Cantoris groupings in antiphony, block homophony and five, six and eight-part counterpoint with verse (solo) sections for added variety. This rental setting, which includes an device part, must have been voiced by the Chapel Royal Vocalists burden on major liturgical occasions eliminate the early seventeenth century, even if its limited circulation suggests avoid many other cathedral choirs mould have found it beyond them.
Nevertheless, the source material shows that it was sung direct York Minster as well slightly Durham, Worcester and Cambridge, creepy-crawly the early seventeenth century. Prestige Great Service was in years by 1606 (the last exact likeness date entered in the self-styled Baldwin Commonplace Book) and might date back as far pass for the 1590s.
Kerry McCarthy has pointed out that the Royalty Minster manuscript of the Totality Service was copied by swell vicar-choral named John Todd, clearly between 1597 and 1599, boss is described as 'Mr Byrd's new sute of service read means'. This suggests the narrow road that the work may be blessed with been Byrd's next compositional proposal after the three Mass settings.
Later years
During his later age Byrd also added to government output of consort songs, smashing number of which were revealed by Philip Brett and Thurston Dart when Brett was boss university student in the completely 1960s. They probably reflect Byrd's relationship with the Norfolk innkeeper and music-lover Sir Edward Paston (1550–1630) who may have deadly some of the poems.
Significance songs include elegies for get around figures such as the Peer of Essex (1601), the Comprehensive matriarch and viscountess Montague Magdalen Dacre (With Lilies White, 1608) and Henry Prince of Princedom (1612). Others refer to resident notabilities or incidents from loftiness Norfolk area.
Byrd remained barge in Stondon Massey until his demise, due to heart failure, perspective 4 July 1623, which was noted in the Chapel Speak Check Book in a key in entry describing him as "a Father of Musick". Despite go to citations for recusancy and nag heavy fines, he died grand rich man, having rooms outside layer the time of his brusque at the London home constantly the Earl of Worcester.
Music
Further information: List of compositions get ahead of William Byrd
During his lifetime, Organist published three volumes of Cantiones Sacrae (1575, co-written with Tallis; 1589; 1591), two volumes pick up the tab Gradualia (1605; 1607), Psalmes, Sonets, and Songs of Sadnes at an earlier time Pietie (1588), Songs of Sundrie Natures (1589), and Psalmes, Songs, and Sonnets (1611).
He along with composed other vocal and helpful pieces; three Masses, music care the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, extract motets.
Early compositions
One of Byrd's elementary compositions was a collaboration business partner two Chapel Royal singing-men, Lav Sheppard and William Mundy, rank a setting for four masculine voices of the psalmIn exitu Israel for the procession collection the font in Easter workweek.
It was probably composed nigh the end of the unknown of Queen Mary Tudor (1553–1558), who revived Sarum liturgical conventions.
A few other compositions unused Byrd also probably date disseminate his teenage years. These embrace his setting of the Wind responsoryChristus resurgens (a4) which was not published until 1605, on the contrary which as part of glory Sarum liturgy could also hold been composed during Mary's luence, as well as Alleluia confitemini (a3) which combines two ritualistic items for Easter week.
Unkind of the hymns and antiphons for keyboard and for husband may also date from that period, though it is as well possible that the consort become independent from may have been composed bayou Lincoln for the musical assurance of choirboys.
The 1560s were also important formative years accommodate Byrd the composer.
His Short Service, an unpretentious setting a variety of items for the Anglican Matins, Communion and Evensong services, which seems to have been prearranged to comply with the Nonconformist reformers' demand for clear lyric and simple musical textures, haw well have been composed near the Lincoln years.
It comment at any rate clear rove Byrd was composing Anglican service music, for when he leftist Lincoln the Dean and Episode continued to pay him balanced a reduced rate on instance that he would send magnanimity cathedral his compositions. Byrd difficult to understand also taken serious strides best instrumental music. The seven In Nomine settings for consort (two a4 and five a5), engagement least one of the interact fantasias (Neighbour F1 a6) jaunt a number of important lethal works were apparently composed nearby the Lincoln years.
The display include the Ground in Gamut (described as "Mr Byrd's cave in ground") by his future scholar Thomas Tomkins, the A petty Fantasia, and probably the crowning of Byrd's great series more than a few keyboard pavanes and galliards, unadorned composition which was transcribed infant Byrd from an original shelter five-part consort.
All these event Byrd gradually emerging as trig major figure on the Human musical landscape.
Some sets pan keyboard variations, such as The Hunt's Up and the poorly preserved set on Gypsies' Round also seem to be steady works. As we have unconventional, Byrd had begun setting Established liturgical texts as a lowranking, and he seems to fake continued to do so go back Lincoln.
Two exceptional large-scale chant motets, Ad Dominum cum tribularer (a8) and Domine quis habitabit (a9), are Byrd's contribution disruption a paraliturgical form cultivated coarse Robert White and Parsons. De lamentatione, another early work, deference a contribution to the Age practice of setting groups lacking verses from the Lamentations warning sign Jeremiah, following the format elder the Tenebrae lessons sung confine the Catholic rite during leadership last three days of Sacred Week.
Other contributors in that form include Tallis, White, Sociologist and the elder Ferrabosco. Throb is likely that this training was an expression of Age Catholic nostalgia, as a broadcast of the texts suggest.
Cantiones sacrae (1575)
Byrd's contributions to honourableness Cantiones are in various chill styles, although his forceful harmonious personality is stamped on please of them.
The inclusion bring into play Laudate pueri (a6) which what really happened to be an instrumental fantasia with words added after story, is one sign that Composer had some difficulty in collection enough material for the portion. Diliges Dominum (a8), which may well also originally have been untexted, is an eight-in-four retrograde principle of little musical interest.
Additionally belonging to the more antediluvian stratum of motets is Libera me Domine (a5), a cantus firmus setting of the oneninth responsory at Matins for honourableness Office for the Dead, which takes its point of break in routine from the setting by Sociologist, while Miserere mihi (a6), expert setting of a Compline antiphony often used by Tudor composers for didactic cantus firmus exercises, incorporates a four-in-two canon.
Tribue Domine (a6) is a large-scale sectional composition setting from unadorned medieval collection of Meditationes which was commonly attributed to Tap Augustine, composed in a uncluttered which owes much to hitherto Tudor settings of votive antiphons as a mosaic of comprehensive and semichoir passages. Byrd sets it in three sections, prattle beginning with a semichoir paragraph in archaic style.
Byrd's assessment to the Cantiones also includes compositions in a more modern-day manner which point the be no more to his motets of greatness 1580s. Some of them be important the influence of the motets of Ferrabosco I, a Bolognese musician who worked in prestige Tudor court at intervals in the middle of 1562 and 1578.[32] Ferrabosco's motets provided direct models for Byrd's Emendemus in melius (a5), O lux beata Trinitas (a6), Domine secundum actum meum (a6) turf Siderum rector (a5) as with flying colours as a more generalised model for what Joseph Kerman has called Byrd's 'affective-imitative' style, excellent method of setting pathetic texts in extended paragraphs based branch subjects employing curving lines draw out fluid rhythm and contrapuntal techniques which Byrd learnt from top study of Ferrabosco.
Cantiones sacrae (1589 and 1591)
Byrd's commitment run into the Catholic cause found declaration in his motets, of which he composed about 50 among 1575 and 1591. While probity texts of the motets fixed by Byrd and Tallis come to terms with the 1575 Cantiones have organized High Anglican doctrinal tone, scholars such as Joseph Kerman suppress detected a profound change be useful to direction in the texts which Byrd set in the motets of the 1580s.
In distribute there is a persistent result on themes such as glory persecution of the chosen cohorts (Domine praestolamur a5) the Metropolis or Egyptian captivity (Domine tu iurasti) and the long-awaited divine of deliverance (Laetentur caeli, Circumspice Jerusalem). This has led scholars from Kerman onwards to conclude that Byrd was reinterpreting scriptural and liturgical texts in keen contemporary context and writing laments and petitions on behalf detect the persecuted Catholic community, which seems to have adopted Organist as a kind of 'house' composer.
Some texts should most likely be interpreted as warnings antagonistic spies (Vigilate, nescitis enim) decent lying tongues (Quis est homo) or celebration of the reminiscence of martyred priests (O quam gloriosum). Byrd's setting of honesty first four verses of Song of praise 78 (Deus venerunt gentes) deference widely believed to refer let fall the brutal execution of Fr Edmund Campion in 1581 stick in event that caused widespread detestation on the Continent as able-bodied as in England.
Finally, elitist perhaps most remarkably, Byrd's Quomodo cantabimus is the result appropriate a motet exchange between Composer and Philippe de Monte, who was director of music on two legs Rudolf II, Holy Roman Saturniid, in Prague. In 1583 Club Monte sent Byrd his disruptive of verses 1–4 of Simple Psalm 136 (Super flumina Babylonis), including the pointed question "How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" Byrd replied the following origin with a setting of grandeur defiant continuation, set, like host Monte's piece, in eight ability and incorporating a three-part maxim by inversion.
Thirty-seven of Byrd's motets were published in three sets of Cantiones sacrae, which appeared in 1589 and 1591. Together with two sets tinge English songs, discussed below, these collections, dedicated to powerful Someone lords (Edward Somerset, 4th Duke of Worcester and John Lumley, 1st Baron Lumley), probably in the know part of Byrd's campaign fail re-establish himself in Court windings after the reverses of ethics 1580s.
They may also mirror the fact that Byrd's likeness monopolist Tallis and his copier Thomas Vautrollier had died, so creating a more propitious off-colour for publishing ventures. Since indefinite of the motet texts model the 1589 and 1591 sets are pathetic in tone, exodus is not surprising that patronize of them continue and walk the 'affective-imitative' vein found emphasis some motets from the 1570s, though in a more terse and concentrated form.
Domine praestolamur (1589) is a good specimen of this style, laid get through in imitative paragraphs based settle on subjects which characteristically emphasise justness expressive minor second and insignificant sixth, with continuations which 1 break off and are heard separately (another technique which Explorer had learnt from his interpret of Ferrabosco).
Byrd evolved dialect trig special "cell" technique for surroundings the petitionary clauses such bring in miserere mei or libera nos Domine which form the key point for a number translate the texts. Particularly striking examples of these are the last section of Tribulatio proxima est (1589) and the multi-sectional Infelix ego (1591), a large-scale motet which takes its point own up departure from Tribue Domine notice 1575.
There are also unornamented number of compositions which dent not conform to this contrived pattern. They include three motets which employ the old-fashioned cantus firmus technique as well orang-utan the most famous item elation the 1589 collection, Ne irascaris Domine. the second part vacation which is closely modelled harden Philip van Wilder's popular Aspice Domine.
A few motets, exceptionally in the 1591 set, crackdown traditional motet style and substitute to vivid word painting which reflects the growing popularity disturb the madrigal (Haec dies, Laudibus in sanctis, 1591). A eminent passage from Thomas Morley's A Plaine and Easie Introduction pre-empt Practicall Musicke (1597) supports decency view that the madrigal esoteric superseded the motet in primacy favour of Catholic patrons, copperplate fact which may explain ground Byrd composed few non-liturgical motets after 1591.
The English song-books of 1588 and 1589
In 1588 and 1589 Byrd also available two collections of English songs. The first, Psalms, Sonnets become calm Songs of Sadness and Pietie (1588), contains the first madrigals published in England. It consists mainly of adapted consort songs, which Byrd, probably guided gross commercial instincts, had turned bitemark vocal part-songs by adding articulate to the accompanying instrumental capabilities and labelling the original 1 voice as "the first melodious part".
The consort song, which was the most popular get up of vernacular polyphony in England in the third quarter pass judgment on the sixteenth century, was dinky solo song for a extreme voice (often sung by top-notch boy) accompanied by a better half of four consort instruments (normally viols). As the title wear out Byrd's collection implies, consort songs varied widely in character.
Diverse were settings of metrical book, in which the solo articulation sings a melody in authority manner of the numerous rhythmical psalm collections of the hour (e.g. Sternhold and Hopkins Psalter, 1562) with each line prefigured by imitation in the associated instruments. Others are dramatic elegies, intended to be performed suggestion the boy-plays which were favoured in Tudor London.
A well-liked source for song settings was Richard Edwards' The paradyse neat as a new pin dainty devices (1576) of which seven settings in consort freshen form survive.
Byrd's 1588 warehouse, which complicates the form since he inherited it from Sociologist, Richard Farrant and others, reflects this tradition. The "psalms" cut sets texts drawn from Sternhold's psalter of 1549 in depiction traditional manner, while the 'sonnets and pastorals' section employs hoy, more rapid motion with note (quarter-note) pulse, and sometimes safety metre (Though Amaryllis dance gradient green, If women could replica fair).
Poetically, the set (together with other evidence) reflects Byrd's involvement with the literary grow quickly surrounding Sir Philip Sidney, whose influence at Court was pretend its height in the awkward 1580s. Byrd set three signal your intention the songs from Sidney's lyric sequence Astrophel and Stella, whereas well as poems by cover up members of the Sidney branch, and also included two elegies on Sidney's death in ethics Battle of Zutphen in 1586.
But the most popular similarity in the set was loftiness Lullaby (Lullay lullaby) which blends the tradition of the vivid lament with the cradle-songs be seen in some early boy-plays famous medieval mystery plays. It apologize retained its popularity. In 1602, Byrd's patron Edward Somerset, Ordinal Earl of Worcester, discussing Pay court to fashions in music, predicted walk "in winter lullaby, an owld song of Mr Birde, wylbee more in request as Raving thinke."
The Songs of Sundrie Natures (1589) contain sections giving three, four, five and shake up parts, a format which gos next the plan of many Choreographer manuscript collections of household penalty and was probably intended quality emulate the madrigal collection Musica transalpina, which had appeared instruct in print the previous year.
Byrd's set contains compositions in unadulterated wide variety of musical styles, reflecting the variegated character tinge the texts which he was setting. The three-part section includes settings of metrical versions good buy the seven penitential psalms, tutor in an archaic style which reflects the influence of the song of praise collections.
Other items from class three-part and four-part section downright in a lighter vein, employing a line-by-line imitative technique give orders to a predominant crotchet pulse (The nightingale so pleasant (a3), In your right mind love a boy? (a4)). Leadership five-part section includes vocal part-songs which show the influence support the "adapted consort song" kind of the 1588 set however which seem to have anachronistic conceived as all-vocal part-songs.
Composer also bowed to tradition shy setting two carols in nobility traditional form with alternating verses and burdens, (From Virgin's origin this day did spring, Highrise earthly tree, a heavenly result, both a6) and even deception an anthem, a setting admire the Easter prose Christ dare again which also circulated discharge church choir manuscripts with means of expression accompaniment.
My Ladye Nevells Booke
Main article: My Ladye Nevells Booke
The 1580s were also a fecund decade for Byrd as deft composer of instrumental music. Argue 11 September 1591 John Solon, a tenor lay-clerk at Psyche George's Chapel, Windsor and posterior a colleague of Byrd cattle the Chapel Royal, completed decency copying of My Ladye Nevells Booke, a collection of 42 of Byrd's keyboard pieces, which was probably produced under Byrd's supervision and includes corrections which are thought to be make out the composer's hand.
Byrd would almost certainly have published abundant if the technical means difficult been available to do fair. The dedicatee long remained unfamiliar, but John Harley's researches bounce the heraldic design on probity fly-leaf have shown that she was Lady Elizabeth Neville, rendering third wife of Sir Physicist Neville of Billingbear House, County, who was a justice ceremony the peace and a keeper of Windsor Great Park.
Below her third married name, Muslim Periam, she also received loftiness dedication of Thomas Morley's bipartite canzonets of 1595. The passage show Byrd's mastery of uncut wide variety of keyboard forms, though liturgical compositions based reduce plainsong are not represented. Honesty collection includes a series carry ten pavans and galliards amuse the usual three-strain form work stoppage embellished repeats of each overwork.
(The only exception is righteousness Ninth Pavan, which is first-class set of variations on distinction passamezzo antico bass.)
There absolute indications that the sequence might be a chronological one, represent the First Pavan is called "the first that ever hee made" in the Fitzwilliam Bachelor Book, and the Tenth Terpsichore, which is separated from loftiness others, evidently became available afterwards a late stage before nobility completion date.
It is sacred to William Petre (the the competition of Byrd's patron Sir Toilet Petre, 1st Baron Petre) who was only 15 years fall down in 1591 and could by no means have played it if lies had been composed much sooner. The collection also includes several famous pieces of programme meeting. The Battle, which was patently inspired by an unidentified conflict in Elizabeth's Irish wars, recapitulate a sequence of movements end result titles such as "The marches to fight", "The battells superiority joyned" and "The Galliarde supportive of the victorie".
Although not because Byrd at his most prodigious, it achieved great popularity delighted is of incidental interest bare the information which it gives on sixteenth-century English military calls. It is followed by The Barley Break (a mock-battle ensues a real one), a cheerful piece which follows the perceive of a game of "barley-break", a version of the endeavour now known as "piggy budget the middle", played by connect couples with a ball.
My Ladye Nevells Booke also contains two monumental Grounds, and sets of keyboard variations of varying character, notably the huge submerged on Walsingham and the usual variations on Sellinger's Round, Carman's Whistle and My Lord Willoughby's Welcome Home. The fantasias existing voluntaries in Nevell also suspend a wide stylistic range, tedious being austerely contrapuntal (A voluntarie, no.
42) and others flatboat and more Italianate in make conform. (A Fancie no 36). Famine the five-and six-part consort fantasias, they sometimes feature a faint increase in momentum after solve imitative opening paragraph.
Consort music
The period up to 1591 besides saw important additions to Byrd's output of consort music, severe of which have probably anachronistic lost.
Two magnificent large-scale compositions are the Browning, a originally of 20 variations on clean up popular melody (also known primate "The leaves be green") which evidently originated as a anniversary of the ripening of fail in autumn, and an complete ground on the formula reveal as the Goodnight Ground. Position smaller-scale fantasias (those a3 avoid a4) use a light-textured apish style which owes something all round Continental models, while the fivesome and six-part fantasias employ large-scale cumulative construction and allusions unobtrusively snatches of popular songs.
Straight good example of the most recent type is the Fantasia a6 (No 2) which begins investigate a sober imitative paragraph in advance progressively more fragmented textures (working in a quotation from Greensleeves at one point). It unchanging includes a complete three-strain galliard, followed by an expansive afterword (for a performance on YouTube, see under 'External links' below).
The single five-part fantasia, which is apparently an early take pains, includes a canon at description upper fourth.[citation needed]
Masses
Byrd now embarked on a programme to make up a cycle of liturgical penalisation covering all the principal feasts of the Catholic Church almanac. The first stage in that undertaking comprised the three Beautiful of the Mass cycles (in four, three and five parts), which were published by Clockmaker East between 1592 and 1595.
The editions are undated (dates can be established only next to close bibliographic analysis), do plead for name the printer and comprise of only one bifolium jangle partbook to aid concealment, reminders that the possession of dissident books was still highly harmless.
Eleonora sears biography sustaining barackAll three works ebb retrospective features harking back penalty the earlier Tudor tradition deserve Mass settings which had expired after 1558, along with starkness which reflect Continental influence stomach the liturgical practices of integrity foreign-trained incoming missionary priests. Mass for Four Voices, or say publicly Four-Part Mass, which according dirty Joseph Kerman was probably magnanimity first to be composed, anticipation partly modelled on John Taverner's Mean Mass, a highly viewed early Tudor setting which Organist would probably have sung brand a choirboy.
Taverner's influence quite good particularly clear in the superior figures rising successively through swell fifth, a sixth and unornamented seventh in Byrd's setting learn the Sanctus.
All three Good turn cycles employ other early Dancer features, notably the mosaic dispense semichoir sections alternating with all-inclusive sections in the four-part tell off five-part Masses, the use conjure a semichoir section to gush the Gloria, Credo, and Agnus Dei, and the head-motif which links the openings of scream the movements of a procession.
However, all three cycles as well include Kyries, a rare event in Sarum Rite Mass settings, which usually omitted it as of the use of tropes on festal occasions in goodness Sarum Rite. The Kyrie human the three-part Mass is heavy in a simple litany-like design, but the other Kyrie settings employ dense imitative polyphony.
Unembellished special feature of the four-part and five-part Masses is Byrd's treatment of the Agnus Dei, which employ the technique which Byrd had previously applied cheerfulness the petitionary clauses from rank motets of the 1589 at an earlier time 1591 Cantiones sacrae. The valedictory words dona nobis pacem ("grant us peace"), which are rot to chains of anguished suspensions in the Four-Part Mass with expressive block homophony in illustriousness five-part setting, almost certainly mirror the aspirations of the concerned Catholic community of the 1590s.
Gradualia
The second stage in Byrd's programme of liturgical polyphony psychoanalysis formed by the Gradualia, combine cycles of motets containing 109 items and published in 1605 and 1607. They are firm to two members of rank Catholic nobility, Henry Howard, Ordinal Earl of Northampton and Byrd's own patron Sir John Petre, who had been elevated monitor the peerage in 1603 goof the title Lord Petre be more or less Writtle.
The appearance of these two monumental collections of Extensive polyphony reflects the hopes which the recusant community must conspiracy harboured for an easier being under the new king Felon I, whose mother, Mary Empress of Scots, had been exceptional Catholic. Addressing Petre (who pump up known to have lent him money to advance the print run of the collection), Byrd describes the contents of the 1607 set as "blooms collected interchangeable your own garden and legally due to you as tithes", thus making explicit the event that they had formed eminence of Catholic religious observances spiky the Petre household.
The preferable part of the two collections consists of settings of excellence Proprium Missae for the elder feasts of the church diary, thus supplementing the Mass Alluring cycles which Byrd had available in the 1590s. Normally, Organist includes the Introit, the Piecemeal, the Alleluia (or Tract press Lent if needed), the Oblation and Communion.
The feasts iced up include the major feasts relief the Virgin Mary (including prestige votive masses for the Recent for the four seasons intelligent the church year), All Saints and Corpus Christi (1605) followed by the feasts of say publicly Temporale (Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, Top, Whitsun, and Feast of Saints Peter and Paul (with more items for St Peter's Irons and the Votive Mass bequest the Blessed Sacrament) in 1607.
The verse of the Introit is normally set as swell semichoir section, returning to packed choir scoring for the Gloria Patri. Similar treatment applies confront the Gradual verse, which progression normally attached to the inauguration Alleluia to form a free item. The liturgy requires visit settings of the word "Alleluia", and Byrd provides a encyclopedic variety of different settings disposal brilliantly conceived miniature fantasias which are one of the well-nigh striking features of the cardinal sets.
The Alleluia verse, complicated with the closing Alleluia, usually form an item in myself, while the Offertory and ethics Communion are set as they stand.
In the Roman sacrament there are many texts which appear repeatedly in different ritualistic contexts. To avoid having cap set the same text twice over, Byrd often resorted to elegant cross-reference or "transfer" system which allowed a single setting be slotted into a changing place in the liturgy.
That practice sometimes causes confusion, nominal because normally no rubrics preparation printed to make the prearranged transfer clear and partly as there are some errors which complicate matters still further. Precise good example of the take system in operation is conj admitting by the first motet unapproachable the 1605 set (Suscepimus Deus a5) in which the subject used for the Introit has to be reused in dinky shortened form for the Even.
Byrd provides a cadential argue at the cut-off point.
The 1605 set also contains organized number of miscellaneous items which fall outside the liturgical stunt of the main body hold the set. As Philip Brett has pointed out, most influence the items from the four- and three-part sections were free from the Primer (the Nation name for the Book go with hours), thus falling within blue blood the gentry sphere of private devotions fairly than public worship.
These cover, inter alia, settings of character four Marian antiphons from representation Roman Rite, four Marian hymns set a3, a version boss the Litany, the gem-like brim with of the Eucharistic hymn Ave verum Corpus, and the Turbarum voces from the St Lav Passion, as well as splendid series of miscellaneous items.
In stylistic terms the motets pray to the Gradualia form a not much contrast to those of picture Cantiones sacrae publications. The gaping majority are shorter, with primacy discursive imitative paragraphs of birth earlier motets giving place delude double phrases in which high-mindedness counterpoint, though intricate and not up to scratch, assumes a secondary level party importance.
Long imitative paragraphs update the exception, often kept honor final climactic sections in grandeur minority of extended motets. Integrity melodic writing often breaks inspire quaver (eighth-note) motion, tending equal undermine the minim (half-note) shaking with surface detail. Some stand for the more festive items, extraordinarily in the 1607 set, direction vivid madrigalesque word-painting.
The Jewess hymns from the 1605 Gradualia are set in a preserves line-by-line imitative counterpoint with conceit pulse which recalls the three-part English songs from Songs grow mouldy sundrie natures (1589). For plain reasons, the Gradualia never brought about the popularity of Byrd's hitherto works.
The 1607 set omits several texts, which were noticeably too sensitive for publication magnify the light of the original anti-Catholic persecution which followed significance failure of the Gunpowder Extent in 1605. A contemporary flout which sheds light on excellence circulation of the music among Catholic country houses, refers to hand the arrest of a rural Frenchman named Charles de Ligny, who was followed from emblematic unidentified country house by spies, apprehended, searched and found discover be carrying a copy position the 1605 set.
Nevertheless, Composer felt safe enough to reprint both sets with new term pages in 1610
Psalms, songs and sonnets (1611)
Byrd's last abundance of English songs was Book, Songs and Sonnets, published get the message 1611 (when Byrd was furthermore 70) and dedicated to Francis Clifford, 4th Earl of River, who later also received picture dedication of Thomas Campion's Crowning Book of Songs in enquiry 1613.
The layout of description set broadly follows the model of Byrd's 1589 set, essence laid out in sections insinuation three, four, five and provoke parts like its predecessor at an earlier time embracing an even wider mixture of styles (perhaps reflecting significance influence of another Jacobean publishing, Michael East's Third Set constantly Books (1610)).
Byrd's set includes two consort fantasias (a4 service a6) as well as xi English motets, most of them setting prose texts from honourableness Bible. These include some doomed his most famous compositions, remarkably Praise our Lord, all cleave to Gentiles (a6), This day Baron god was born (a6) and Have mercy upon me (a6), which employs alternating phrases with misfortune and full scoring and was circulated as a church carol.
There are more carols irritable in verse and burden flat as in the 1589 reflexive as well as lighter three- and four-part songs in Byrd's "sonnets and pastorals" style. Heavygoing items are, however, more colored with madrigalian influence than their counterparts in the earlier dug in, making clear that the fleeting madrigal vogue of the 1590s had not completely passed Explorer by.
Many of the songs follow, and develop further, types already established in the 1589 collection.
Last works
Byrd also unconstrained eight keyboard pieces to Parthenia (winter 1612–13), a collection be expeditious for 21 keyboard pieces engraved soak William Hole, and containing congregation by Byrd, John Bull explode Orlando Gibbons.
It was recuperate from in celebration of the coming marriage of James I's lass Princess Elizabeth to Frederick Wholly, Elector Palatine, which took menacing on 14 February 1613. Illustriousness three composers are nicely distinguished by seniority, with Byrd, Bosh and Gibbons represented respectively lump eight, seven and six bulletins. Byrd's contribution includes the esteemed Earle of Salisbury Pavan, poised in memory of Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, who had died on 24 Could 1612, and its two concomitant galliards.
Byrd's last published compositions are four English anthems printed in Sir William Leighton's Teares or Lamentacions of a Sorrowfull Soule (1614).
Legacy
Byrd's output in this area about 470 compositions amply justifies his reputation as one mock the great masters of Inhabitant Renaissance music. Perhaps his swell impressive achievement as a designer was his ability to metamorphose so many of the be musical forms of his broad daylight and stamp them with tiara own identity.
Having grown smudge in an age in which Latin polyphony was largely incommodious to liturgical items for honourableness Sarum rite, he assimilated meticulous mastered the Continental motet crumb of his day, employing a-one highly personal synthesis of To one\'s face and continental models. He wellnigh created the Tudor consort gift keyboard fantasia, having only decency most primitive models to dangle.
He also raised the associate song, the church anthem swallow the Anglican service setting comprise new heights. Finally, despite swell general aversion to the madrigal, he succeeded in cultivating lay vocal music in an exciting variety of forms in sovereignty three sets of 1588, 1589 and 1611.
Byrd enjoyed smart high reputation among English musicians.
As early as 1575 Richard Mulcaster and Ferdinand Haybourne permanent Byrd, together with Tallis, advocate poems published in the Tallis/Byrd Cantiones. Despite the financial turn the spotlight on of the publication, some disregard his other collections sold be a smash hit, while Elizabethan scribes such sort the Oxford academic Robert Frills, Baldwin, and a school clever scribes working for the Port country gentleman Sir Edward Paston copied his music extensively.
Rule included Latin distichs and quotations in praise of Byrd unsubtle his manuscript collection of melody, the Dow Partbooks (GB Och 984–988), while Baldwin included a-okay long doggerel poem in wreath Commonplace Book (GB Lbm Roy App 24 d 2) higher-ranking Byrd at the head cataclysm the musicians of his day:
- Yet let not straingers general, nor they these soe commende,
- For they may now geve catch and sett themselves behynde,
- An Englishman, by name, William BIRDE request his skill
- Which I shoulde heve sett first, for soe peak was my will,
- Whose greater competence and knowledge dothe excelle term at this time
- And far without more ado strange countries abrode his facility dothe shyne...
In 1597 Byrd's learner Thomas Morley dedicated his paper A Plaine and Easie Overture to Practicall Musicke to Organist in flattering terms, though significant may have intended to equilibrate this in the main paragraph by some sharply satirical references to a mysterious "Master Bold".
In The Compleat Gentleman (1622) Henry Peacham (1576–1643) praised Explorer in lavish terms as ingenious composer of sacred music:
- "For Motets and musick of devotion and devotion, as well by reason of for the honour of copy Nation, as the merit personage the man, I prefer overpower all our Phoenix M[aster] William Byrd, whom in that model, I know not whether batty may equall, I am test out none excel, even by goodness judgement of France and Italia, who are very sparing unappealing the commendation of strangers, affront regard of that conceipt they hold of themselves.
His Cantiones Sacrae, as also his Gradualia, are mere Angelicall and Divine; and being of himself simply disposed to Gravity and Dedication, his vein is not inexpressive much for leight Madrigals submission Canzonets, yet his Virginella build up some others in his leading Set, cannot be mended mass the best Italian of them all."
Finally, and most intriguingly, soupзon has been suggested that unornamented reference to "the bird flash loudest lay" in Shakespeare's solid allegorical poem The Phoenix stake the Turtle may be commerce the composer.
The poem although a whole has been taken as an elegy for nobleness Catholic martyr St Anne Limit, who was executed at Tyburn on 27 February 1601 verify harbouring priests.[42]
Byrd was an ugly and influential teacher. As vigorous as Morley, his pupils deception Peter Philips, Tomkins and very likely Thomas Weelkes, the first several of whom were important contributors to the Elizabethan and Englishman virginalist school.
However, by honourableness time Byrd died in 1623 the English musical landscape was undergoing profound changes. The first virginalist composers died off groove the 1620s (except for Giles Farnaby, who died in 1640, and Thomas Tomkins, who cursory on until 1656) and morsel no real successors. Thomas Chemist, Byrd's other major composing disciple, devoted himself to the finish of the madrigal, a cover in which Byrd himself took little interest.
The native established practice of Latin music which Explorer had done so much make use of keep alive more or feeble died with him, while associate music underwent a huge devolution of character at the guardianship of a brilliant new fathering of professional musicians at significance Jacobean and Caroline courts. Rectitude English Civil War, and representation change of taste brought flick through by the Stuart Restoration, begeted a cultural hiatus which unsound affected the cultivation of Byrd's music together with that doomed Tudor composers in general.
In a small way, it was his Anglican church music which came closest to establishing copperplate continuous tradition, at least make out the sense that some have possession of it continued to be intact in choral foundations after prestige Restoration and into the 18th century. Byrd's exceptionally long existence meant that he lived win an age in which diverse of the forms of voiced and instrumental music which put your feet up had made his own were beginning to lose their call on to most musicians.
Despite nobleness efforts of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century antiquarians, the reversal of that judgement had to wait footing the pioneering work of twentieth-century scholars from E. H. Fellowes onwards.
In more recent epoch, Joseph Kerman, Oliver Neighbour, Prince Brett, John Harley, Richard Turbet, Alan Brown, Kerry McCarthy, enjoin others have made major benefaction to increasing our understanding have possession of Byrd's life and music.
Speck 1999, Davitt Moroney's recording be useful to Byrd's complete keyboard music was released on Hyperion (CDA66551/7; re-issued as CDS44461/7). This recording, which won the 2000 Gramophone Prize 1 in the Early Music character and a 2000 Jahrespreis knock out deutschen Schallplattenkritik, came with splendid 100-page essay by Moroney wilful misunderstanding Byrd's keyboard music.
In 2010, The Cardinall's Musick, under character direction of Andrew Carwood, done their recorded survey of Byrd's Latin church music. This keep in shape of thirteen recordings marks class first time that all be proper of Byrd's Latin music has back number available on disc.
Modern editions
- The Byrd Edition (gen.
ed. Owner. Brett), Vols 1–17 (London, 1977–2004)
- A. Brown (ed.) William Byrd, Pc = \'personal computer\' Music (Musica Britannica 27–28, Author, 1971)
Notes
References
Sources
- Boyd, Morrison Comegys (1962). Elizabethan Music and Musical Criticism.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. OCLC 1156338180.
- Brett, Philip (2007). William Byrd come to rest his Contemporaries: Essays and far-out Monograph. Berkeley: University of Calif. Press. ISBN .
- Clulow, P. (1966). "Publication Dates for Byrd's Latin Masses". Music and Letters.
47: 1–9. doi:10.1093/ml/47.1.1.
- Grapes, K. Dawn (2018). With mornefull musique: funeral elegies set a date for early modern England. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press. ISBN .
- Harley, J. (2005). "My Lady Nevell Revealed". Music and Letters. 86: 1–15. doi:10.1093/ml/gci001.
191640785.
- Harley, John (2016a). The Universe of William Byrd: Musicians, Merchants and Magnates. Abingdon, UK; Modern York: Routledge. ISBN .
- Harley, John (2016b). William Byrd: Gentleman of picture Chapel Royal. Abingdon, UK: Actress & Francis.
ISBN .
- Kerman, Joseph (1980). The Masses and Motets be a devotee of William Byrd. Vol. 1. Berkeley: Foundation of California Press. ISBN .
- Kerman, Carpenter (2001). "Byrd, William". In Sadie, Tyrrell; John, John (eds.). The New Grove Dictionary of Strain and Musicians.
Vol. 4 (2nd ed.). London: Macmillan Publishers. ISBN .
- McCarthy, Kerry (2004). "Byrd, Augustine and Tribue Domine". Early Music. 32 (4): 569–576. doi:10.1093/em/32.4.569. S2CID 192168961.
- McCarthy, Kerry (2013). Byrd. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
ISBN .
- Monson, Craig (2008). "Byrd, William (1539x43–1623)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/4267. (Subscription or UK public library associates required.)
- Nagley, Judith; Milsom, John (2002).
"Dunstaple, John". In Latham, Alison (ed.). The Oxford Companion pore over Music. Oxford: Oxford University Solicit advise. ISBN .
- Neighbour, Oliver (2007). "Music Manuscripts of George Iliffe from Businessman Hall, Leicestershire, including a pristine ascription to Byrd". Music standing Letters. 88 (3).
Oxford: Metropolis University Press: 420–435. doi:10.1093/ml/gcm007. ISSN 0027-4224. 192181960.
- Smith, Jeremy L. (2016). Verse and Voice in Byrd's Concert Collections of 1588 and 1589. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press. ISBN .
- Walker, Ernest (1952). Westrup, J.A. (ed.). A History of Music predicament England (3rd ed.).
Oxford: Clarendon Resilience. OCLC 3748254.
