William Byrd
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William Byrd (/bɜːrd/; c. 1540 – 4 July 1623) was an English Renaissance composer. Considered among the greatest composers of the Renaissance, he had a profound influence on composers both from his native country and on the Continent.[1] He is often considered along with John Dunstaple, Thomas Tallis and Henry Purcell as one of England's most important composers of early music.
Byrd wrote in many of the forms current in England at the time, including various types of sacred and secular
services, but during the 1570s became a Roman Catholic, and wrote Catholic sacred music later in his life.Life
Birth and background
Richard Byrd of Ingatestone, Essex, the paternal grandfather of Thomas Byrd, probably moved to London in the 15th century. Thereafter succeeding generations of the Byrd family are described as gentlemen.[2]
William Byrd was probably born in London, the third surviving son of Thomas Byrd and his wife, Margery.[3][note 1] No record of his birth has survived,[4] and the year of his birth is not known for certain, but a document dated 2 October 1598, and written by William Byrd, states that he is "58 yeares or ther abouts", making the year he was born to be 1539 or 1540.[5] Byrd's will of November 1622 provides a later date for his birth, as in it Byrd states that he was then in the "80th year of mine age". The historian Kerry McCarthy has suggested that discrepancy over these dates may have been due to the will not being kept up to date over a period of several years.[6]
Byrd was born into a musical and relatively wealthy family.[7] He had two older brothers, Symond and John,[4] who became London merchants and active members of their respective livery companies. One of his four sisters, Barbara, was married to a maker of musical instruments who kept a shop; his three other sisters, Martha, Mary and Alice, were probably also married to merchants.[7][8]
Youth and early career
Details of Byrd's childhood are speculative.[7] There is no documentary evidence concerning Byrd's education or early musical training. His two brothers were choristers at St. Paul's Cathedral,[4] and Byrd may have been a chorister there as well, although it is possible that he was a chorister with the Chapel Royal. According to Anthony Wood, Byrd was "bred up to musick under Tho. Tallis",[9] and a reference in the Cantiones sacrae, published by Byrd and Thomas Tallis in 1575, tends to confirm that Byrd was a pupil of Tallis in the Chapel Royal.[10] If he was—and conclusive evidence has not emerged to verify it[11]—it seems likely that once Byrd's voice broke, the boy stayed on at the Chapel Royal as Tallis's assistant.[4]
Byrd produced student compositions, including Sermone Blando for consort, and a "Miserere". Church music for the Catholic rite reintroduced by Mary would have been composed before her death in 1558, which occurred when Byrd was eighteen.[4] His early compositions suggest he was taught polyphony when a student.[12]
Lincoln
Byrd's first known professional employment was his appointment in 1563 as organist and master of the choristers at
On 14 September 1568, Byrd was married in the church of St Margaret-in-the-Close, Lincoln. His wife, Juliana, came from the Birley family of Lincolnshire. The baptism records mention two of their children, Christopher and Elizabeth,[15] but the marriage produced at least seven children.
The Chapel Royal
In 1572, following the death of the composer Robert Parsons, who drowned in the Trent near Newark on 25 January of that year, Byrd obtained the post of Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, the largest choir of its kind in England. The appointment, which was for life, came with a good salary.[16] Almost from the outset Byrd is named as 'organist', which however was not a designated post but an occupation for any Chapel Royal member capable of filling it.
Byrd's appointment at the Chapel Royal increased his opportunities to widen his scope as a composer and also to make contacts at the court of Queen Elizabeth. The Queen was a moderate Protestant who eschewed the more extreme forms of Puritanism and retained a fondness for elaborate ritual, besides being a music lover and keyboard player herself. Byrd's output of Anglican church music (defined in the strictest sense as sacred music designed for performance in church) is small, but it stretches the limits of elaboration then regarded as acceptable by some reforming Protestants who regarded highly wrought music as a distraction from the Word of God.
In 1575 Byrd and Tallis were jointly granted a
The two monopolists took advantage of the patent to produce a grandiose joint publication under the title Cantiones quae ab argumento sacrae vocantur. It was a collection of 34 Latin
The Cantiones were a financial failure. In 1577 Byrd and Tallis were forced to petition Queen Elizabeth for financial help, pleading that the publication had "fallen oute to oure greate losse" and that Tallis was now "verie aged". They were subsequently granted the leasehold on various lands in East Anglia and the West Country for a period of 21 years.[18]
Catholicism
From the early 1570s onwards Byrd became increasingly involved with Catholicism, which, as the scholarship of the last half-century has demonstrated, became a major factor in his personal and creative life. As John Harley has shown, it is probable that Byrd's parental family were Protestants, though whether by deeply felt conviction or nominal conformism is not clear. Byrd himself may have held Protestant beliefs in his youth, for a recently discovered fragment of a setting of an English translation of Martin Luther's hymn "Erhalt uns, Herr, bei deinem Wort", which bears an attribution to "Birde" includes the line "From Turk and Pope defend us Lord".[19] However, from the 1570s onwards he is found associating with known Catholics, including Lord Thomas Paget, to whom he wrote a petitionary letter on behalf of an unnamed friend in about 1573.[20] Byrd's wife Julian was first cited for recusancy (refusing to attend Anglican services) at Harlington in Middlesex, where the family then lived, in 1577. Byrd himself appears in the recusancy lists from 1584.[21]
His involvement with Catholicism took on a new dimension in the 1580s. Following
Stondon Massey
In about 1594 Byrd's career entered a new phase. He was now in his early fifties, and seems to have gone into semi-retirement from the Chapel Royal. He moved with his family from Harlington to
Byrd's acquaintance with the Petre family extended back at least to 1581 (as his surviving autograph letter of that year shows)
Anglican church music
Byrd's staunch adherence to Catholicism did not prevent him from contributing memorably to the repertory of
Later years
During his later years Byrd also added to his output of consort songs, a number of which were discovered by Philip Brett and Thurston Dart when Brett was a university student in the early 1960s.[27] They probably reflect Byrd's relationship with the Norfolk landowner and music-lover Sir Edward Paston (1550–1630) who may have written some of the poems. The songs include elegies for public figures such as the Earl of Essex (1601), the Catholic matriarch and viscountess Montague Magdalen Dacre (With Lilies White, 1608) and Henry Prince of Wales (1612). Others refer to local notabilities or incidents from the Norfolk area.
Byrd remained in Stondon Massey until his death, due to heart failure, on 4 July 1623, which was noted in the Chapel Royal Check Book in a unique entry describing him as "a Father of Musick". Despite repeated citations for recusancy and persistent heavy fines, he died a rich man, having rooms at the time of his death at the London home of the Earl of Worcester.
Music
During his lifetime, Byrd published three volumes of Cantiones Sacrae (1575, co-written with Tallis; 1589; 1591), two volumes of Gradualia (1605; 1607), Psalmes, Sonets, and Songs of Sadnes and Pietie (1588), Songs of Sundrie Natures (1589), and Psalmes, Songs, and Sonnets (1611). He also composed other vocal and instrumental pieces; three Masses, music for the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, and motets.[28]
Early compositions
One of Byrd's earliest compositions was a collaboration with two Chapel Royal singing-men,
A few other compositions by Byrd also probably date from his teenage years. These include his setting of the Easter
The 1560s were also important formative years for Byrd the composer. His Short Service, an unpretentious setting of items for the Anglican
Some sets of keyboard variations, such as The Hunt's Up and the imperfectly preserved set on Gypsies' Round also seem to be early works. As we have seen, Byrd had begun setting Latin liturgical texts as a teenager, and he seems to have continued to do so at Lincoln. Two exceptional large-scale psalm
Cantiones sacrae (1575)
Byrd's contributions to the Cantiones are in various different styles, although his forceful musical personality is stamped on all of them. The inclusion of Laudate pueri (a6) which proves to be an instrumental fantasia with words added after composition,
Byrd's contribution to the Cantiones also includes compositions in a more forward-looking manner which point the way to his motets of the 1580s. Some of them show the influence of the motets of Ferrabosco I, a Bolognese musician who worked in the Tudor court at intervals between 1562 and 1578.[31] Ferrabosco's motets provided direct models for Byrd's Emendemus in melius (a5), O lux beata Trinitas (a6), Domine secundum actum meum (a6) and Siderum rector (a5) as well as a more generalised paradigm for what Joseph Kerman has called Byrd's 'affective-imitative' style, a method of setting pathetic texts in extended paragraphs based on subjects employing curving lines in fluid rhythm and contrapuntal techniques which Byrd learnt from his study of Ferrabosco.
Cantiones sacrae (1589 and 1591)
Byrd's commitment to the Catholic cause found expression in his motets, of which he composed about 50 between 1575 and 1591. While the texts of the motets included by Byrd and Tallis in the 1575 Cantiones have a
Thirty-seven of Byrd's motets were published in two sets of Cantiones sacrae, which appeared in 1589 and 1591. Together with two sets of English songs, discussed below, these collections, dedicated to powerful Elizabethan lords (Edward Somerset, 4th Earl of Worcester and John Lumley, 1st Baron Lumley), probably formed part of Byrd's campaign to re-establish himself in Court circles after the reverses of the 1580s. They may also reflect the fact that Byrd's fellow monopolist Tallis and his printer Thomas Vautrollier had died, thus creating a more propitious climate for publishing ventures. Since many of the motet texts of the 1589 and 1591 sets are pathetic in tone, it is not surprising that many of them continue and develop the 'affective-imitative' vein found in some motets from the 1570s, though in a more concise and concentrated form. Domine praestolamur (1589) is a good example of this style, laid out in imitative paragraphs based on subjects which characteristically emphasise the expressive minor second and minor sixth, with continuations which subsequently break off and are heard separately (another technique which Byrd had learnt from his study of Ferrabosco). Byrd evolved a special "cell" technique for setting the petitionary clauses such as miserere mei or libera nos Domine which form the focal point for a number of the texts. Particularly striking examples of these are the final section of Tribulatio proxima est (1589) and the multi-sectional Infelix ego (1591), a large-scale motet which takes its point of departure from Tribue Domine of 1575.
There are also a number of compositions which do not conform to this stylistic pattern. They include three motets which employ the old-fashioned cantus firmus technique as well as the most famous item in the 1589 collection, Ne irascaris Domine. the second part of which is closely modelled on
The English song-books of 1588 and 1589
In 1588 and 1589 Byrd also published two collections of English songs.
Byrd's 1588 collection, which complicates the form as he inherited it from Parsons,
The Songs of Sundrie Natures (1589) contain sections in three, four, five and six parts, a format which follows the plan of many Tudor manuscript collections of household music and was probably intended to emulate the madrigal collection
My Ladye Nevells Booke
The 1580s were also a productive decade for Byrd as a composer of instrumental music. On 11 September 1591
There are indications that the sequence may be a chronological one, for the First Pavan is labelled "the first that ever hee made" in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, and the Tenth Pavan, which is separated from the others, evidently became available at a late stage before the completion date. It is dedicated to
Consort music
The period up to 1591 also saw important additions to Byrd's output of consort music, some of which have probably been lost. Two magnificent large-scale compositions are the Browning, a set of 20 variations on a popular melody (also known as "The leaves be green") which evidently originated as a celebration of the ripening of nuts in autumn, and an elaborate ground on the formula known as the Goodnight Ground. The smaller-scale fantasias (those a3 and a4) use a light-textured imitative style which owes something to Continental models, while the five and six-part fantasias employ large-scale cumulative construction and allusions to snatches of popular songs. A good example of the last type is the Fantasia a6 (No 2) which begins with a sober imitative paragraph before progressively more fragmented textures (working in a quotation from Greensleeves at one point). It even includes a complete three-strain galliard, followed by an expansive coda (for a performance on YouTube, see under 'External links' below). The single five-part fantasia, which is apparently an early work, includes a canon at the upper fourth.
Masses
Byrd now embarked on a programme to provide a cycle of liturgical music covering all the principal feasts of the Catholic Church calendar. The first stage in this undertaking comprised the three
All three Mass cycles employ other early Tudor features, notably the mosaic of semichoir sections alternating with full sections in the four-part and five-part Masses, the use of a semichoir section to open the
Gradualia
The second stage in Byrd's programme of liturgical polyphony is formed by the Gradualia, two cycles of motets containing 109 items and published in 1605 and 1607. They are dedicated to two members of the Catholic nobility,
The greater part of the two collections consists of settings of the
In the
The 1605 set also contains a number of miscellaneous items which fall outside the liturgical scheme of the main body of the set. As
In stylistic terms the motets of the Gradualia form a sharp contrast to those of the Cantiones sacrae publications. The vast majority are shorter, with the discursive imitative paragraphs of the earlier motets giving place to double phrases in which the counterpoint, though intricate and concentrated, assumes a secondary level of importance. Long imitative paragraphs are the exception, often kept for final climactic sections in the minority of extended motets. The melodic writing often breaks into quaver (eighth-note) motion, tending to undermine the minim (half-note) pulse with surface detail. Some of the more festive items, especially in the 1607 set, feature vivid madrigalesque word-painting. The Marian hymns from the 1605 Gradualia are set in a light line-by-line imitative counterpoint with crotchet pulse which recalls the three-part English songs from Songs of sundrie natures (1589). For obvious reasons, the Gradualia never achieved the popularity of Byrd's earlier works. The 1607 set omits several texts, which were evidently too sensitive for publication in the light of the renewed anti-Catholic persecution which followed the failure of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605. A contemporary account which sheds light on the circulation of the music between Catholic country houses, refers to the arrest of a young Frenchman named Charles de Ligny, who was followed from an unidentified country house by spies, apprehended, searched and found to be carrying a copy of the 1605 set.[38] Nevertheless, Byrd felt safe enough to reissue both sets with new title pages in 1610
Psalms, songs and sonnets (1611)
Byrd's last collection of English songs was Psalms, Songs and Sonnets, published in 1611 (when Byrd was over 70) and dedicated to Francis Clifford, 4th Earl of Cumberland, who later also received the dedication of Thomas Campion's First Book of Songs in about 1613. The layout of the set broadly follows the pattern of Byrd's 1589 set, being laid out in sections for three, four, five and six parts like its predecessor and embracing an even wider miscellany of styles (perhaps reflecting the influence of another Jacobean publication, Michael East's Third Set of Books (1610)). Byrd's set includes two consort fantasias (a4 and a6) as well as eleven English motets, most of them setting prose texts from the Bible. These include some of his most famous compositions, notably Praise our Lord, all ye Gentiles (a6), This day Christ was born (a6) and Have mercy upon me (a6), which employs alternating phrases with verse and full scoring and was circulated as a church anthem. There are more carols set in verse and burden form as in the 1589 set as well as lighter three- and four-part songs in Byrd's "sonnets and pastorals" style. Some items are, however, more tinged with madrigalian influence than their counterparts in the earlier set, making clear that the short-lived madrigal vogue of the 1590s had not completely passed Byrd by. Many of the songs follow, and develop further, types already established in the 1589 collection.
Last works
Byrd also contributed eight keyboard pieces to Parthenia (winter 1612–13), a collection of 21 keyboard pieces engraved by
Legacy
Byrd's output of about 470 compositions amply justifies his reputation as one of the great masters of European Renaissance music. Perhaps his most impressive achievement as a composer was his ability to transform so many of the main musical forms of his day and stamp them with his own identity. Having grown up in an age in which Latin polyphony was largely confined to liturgical items for the Sarum rite, he assimilated and mastered the Continental motet form of his day, employing a highly personal synthesis of English and continental models. He virtually created the Tudor consort and keyboard fantasia, having only the most primitive models to follow. He also raised the consort song, the church anthem and the Anglican service setting to new heights. Finally, despite a general aversion to the madrigal, he succeeded in cultivating secular vocal music in an impressive variety of forms in his three sets of 1588, 1589 and 1611.
Byrd enjoyed a high reputation among English musicians. As early as 1575 Richard Mulcaster and Ferdinand Haybourne praised Byrd, together with Tallis, in poems published in the Tallis/Byrd Cantiones. Despite the financial failure of the publication, some of his other collections sold well, while Elizabethan scribes such as the
- Yet let not straingers bragg, nor they these soe commende,
- For they may now geve place and sett themselves behynde,
- An Englishman, by name, William BIRDE for his skill
- Which I shoulde heve sett first, for soe it was my will,
- Whose greater skill and knowledge dothe excelle all at this time
- And far to strange countries abrode his skill dothe shyne...[39]
In 1597 Byrd's pupil Thomas Morley dedicated his treatise A Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke to Byrd in flattering terms, though he may have intended to counterbalance this in the main text by some sharply satirical references to a mysterious "Master Bold". In The Compleat Gentleman (1622) Henry Peacham (1576–1643) praised Byrd in lavish terms as a composer of sacred music:
- "For Motets and musick of piety and devotion, as well as for the honour of our Nation, as the merit of the man, I prefer above all our Phoenix M[aster] William Byrd, whom in that kind, I know not whether any may equall, I am sure none excel, even by the judgement of France and Italy, who are very sparing in the commendation of strangers, in regard of that conceipt they hold of themselves. His Cantiones Sacrae, as also his Gradualia, are mere Angelicall and Divine; and being of himself naturally disposed to Gravity and Piety, his vein is not so much for leight Madrigals or Canzonets, yet his Virginella and some others in his first Set, cannot be mended by the best Italian of them all."[40]
Finally, and most intriguingly, it has been suggested that a reference to "the bird of loudest lay" in
Byrd was an active and influential teacher. As well as Morley, his pupils included Peter Philips, Tomkins and probably Thomas Weelkes, the first two of whom were important contributors to the Elizabethan and Jacobean virginalist school. However, by the time Byrd died in 1623 the English musical landscape was undergoing profound changes. The principal virginalist composers died off in the 1620s (except for Giles Farnaby, who died in 1640, and Thomas Tomkins, who lived on until 1656) and found no real successors. Thomas Morley, Byrd's other major composing pupil, devoted himself to the cultivation of the madrigal, a form in which Byrd himself took little interest. The native tradition of Latin music which Byrd had done so much to keep alive more or less died with him, while consort music underwent a huge change of character at the hands of a brilliant new generation of professional musicians at the Jacobean and Caroline courts. The English Civil War, and the change of taste brought about by the Stuart Restoration, created a cultural hiatus which adversely affected the cultivation of Byrd's music together with that of Tudor composers in general.
In a small way, it was his Anglican church music which came closest to establishing a continuous tradition, at least in the sense that some of it continued to be performed in choral foundations after the Restoration and into the eighteenth century. Byrd's exceptionally long lifespan meant that he lived into an age in which many of the forms of vocal and instrumental music which he had made his own were beginning to lose their appeal to most musicians. Despite the efforts of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century antiquarians, the reversal of this judgement had to wait for the pioneering work of twentieth-century scholars from
In more recent times, Joseph Kerman,
Modern editions
- The Byrd Edition (gen. ed. P. Brett), Vols 1–17 (London, 1977–2004)
- A. Brown (ed.) William Byrd, Keyboard Music (Musica Britannica 27–28, London, 1971)
Notes
- ^ Byrd's father may have been recorded in the rolls of the Worshipful Company of Fletchers in London, and a person of the same name was buried on 12 November 1575 at the church of All Hallows Lombard Street (now demolished).[3]
References
- ^ "William Byrd". Gramophone Magazine. Archived from the original on 13 December 2022. Retrieved 13 December 2022.
- ^ Harley 2016b, pp. 391–394.
- ^ a b Harley 2016a, p. 4.
- ^ a b c d e Kerman 2001, p. 714.
- ^ Harley 2016b, p. 14.
- ^ McCarthy 2013, p. 4.
- ^ a b c McCarthy 2013, p. 3.
- ^ Harley 2016a, p. 18.
- ^ a b Harley 2016a, p. 52.
- ^ Harley 2016a, pp. 46–47.
- ^ Monson 2008.
- ^ McCarthy 2013, p. 10.
- ^ Harley 2016b, ch.2.
- ^ Harley 2016b, pp. 38–40.
- ^ Harley 2016b, p. 38.
- ^ McCarthy 2013, pp. 51–52.
- ^ Walker 1952, p. 48.
- ^ Harley 2016b, pp. 65–66.
- ^ Neighbour 2007.
- ^ Harley 2016b, pp. 44–48
- ^ Harley 2016b, p. 74.
- ^ Kerman 1980, pp. 49–50.
- ^ Harley 2016b, ch.5.
- ^ Harley 2016b, pp. 90–92.
- ^ Harley 2016b, p. 126.
- ^ McCarthy 2013, p. 158.
- ^ Brett 2007, p. viii.
- ^ Walker 1952, p. 72.
- ^ Kerman 1980, pp. 85–87.
- ^ McCarthy 2004.
- ^ Kerman 1980, p. 35ff.
- ^ Kerman 1980, pp. 37–46.
- ^ Smith 2016.
- ^ Walker 1952, p. 77.
- ^ Grapes 2018.
- ^ Harley 2005.
- ^ Clulow 1966.
- ^ Harley 2016b, p. 142ff.
- ^ Boyd 1962, pp. 81–83.
- ^ Boyd 1962, p. 83.
- Times Literary Supplement. pp. 12–14.
Sources
- Boyd, Morrison Comegys (1962). Elizabethan Music and Musical Criticism. Philadelphia: OCLC 1156338180.
- ISBN 978-05202-4-758-1.
- Clulow, P. (1966). "Publication Dates for Byrd's Latin Masses". .
- Grapes, K. Dawn (2018). With mornefull musique: funeral elegies in early modern England. Woodbridge, UK: ISBN 978-17832-7-351-5.
- Harley, J. (2005). "My Lady Nevell Revealed". . 191640785.
- Harley, John (2016a). The World of William Byrd: Musicians, Merchants and Magnates. Abingdon, UK; New York: ISBN 978-14094-0-088-2.
- Harley, John (2016b). William Byrd: Gentleman of the Chapel Royal. Abingdon, UK: ISBN 978-13515-3-694-3.
- ISBN 978-05200-4-033-5.
- Kerman, Joseph (2001). "Byrd, William". In ISBN 978-03336-0-800-5.
- McCarthy, Kerry (2004). "Byrd, Augustine and Tribue Domine". Early Music. 32 (4): 569–576. S2CID 192168961.
- McCarthy, Kerry (2013). Byrd. Oxford: ISBN 978-01953-8-875-6.
- Monson, Craig (2008). "Byrd, William (1539x43–1623)". doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/4267. (Subscription or UK public library membershiprequired.)
- ISSN 0027-4224. 192181960.
- Smith, Jeremy L. (2016). Verse and Voice in Byrd's Song Collections of 1588 and 1589. Woodbridge, UK: ISBN 978-17832-7-082-8.
- OCLC 3748254.
Further reading
- Brown, Alan; Turbet, Richard, eds. (1992). Byrd Studies. Cambridge: ISBN 978-05214-0-129-6.
- Nagley, Judith; Milsom, John (2002). "Dunstaple, John". In Latham, Alison (ed.). The Oxford Companion to Music. Oxford: ISBN 978-01995-7-903-7.
- ISBN 978-05200-3-486-0.
- Turbet, Richard (1987). William Byrd: A Guide to Research. New York: Garland. ISBN 978-08240-8-388-5.
- Turbet, Richard (2012). William Byrd: A Research and Information Guide (3rd ed.). New York: ISBN 978-02031-1-234-2.
External links
- Quotations related to William Byrd at Wikiquote
- Works related to William Byrd at Wikisource
- Free scores by William Byrd at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
- Free scores by William Byrd in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
- List of compositions by William Byrd at the Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music (DIAMM) – a detailed alphabetical list
Recordings
- Free recordings of Madrigals, Latin Church Music
- Free recordings of Byrd's Ave verum corpus Archived 14 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine
- Free recordings of Mass for four voices and some Christmas motets
- Motet Ave Verum Corpus as interactive hypermedia at the BinAural Collaborative Hypertext
- Kunst der Fuge: William Byrd – Free MIDI files