William Byrd Essay

William Byrd was an English composer and organist of the Shakespearean era who is best known for his collection of masses, motets, anthems, services, fantasias, and secular works and is considered a master of all genres during his time. He was the son of Thomas and Margery Byrd. Records do not indicate the real date of his birth, but researchers believe he was born between the years of 1539 and 1540 in London, England. He was mostly known for sacred music written in Latin and secular music specifically his madrigals. The beginning of his musical training started at the age of seven. As a star of the famous composer Thomas Tallis he started composing music while being a singer at the Chapel Royal. His two brothers, were also choristers at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. Byrd was one of the greatest English composers of his generation. Music in the 16th century was associated with civic, religion, and courtly life. The Protestant Reformation reorganized the methods and theories of the Roman Catholic Church. Political and religious events such as the Protestant Reformation formed the styles of composed music, methods of publicizing music, and new musical genres. The most important music of the Renaissance era were compositions composed
for the church such as masses and motets in the Latin language for important churches as well as court chapels. Towards the end 16th century, different people were advocating for different economical structure: the Catholic Church, Protestant churches and courts. Musically around this time William Byrd was composing music for a number of different Anglican services.
Two Chapel Royal composers; John Sheppard and William Mundy collaborated with Byrd in some of his earlier works. Recognizing his abilities they invited Byrd to work with them. They composed a psalm for four voices entitled “In exitu Israel” which is a piece composed for processional for Easter Week. This setting of a psalm for an evening prayer service had eight verses, each by Mundy and Sheppard, and four verses by Byrd. After he left London, Byrd was designated a position at what is known today as the Lincoln Cathedral in 1563 as an organist. However, in 1569 he was suspended for exceeding Anglican limits during
services.
Leaving the Cathedral to work with Thomas Tallis in 1572. By Byrd being a student of Tallis, William Byrd had the opportunity to experience music that represented the English culture and the Chapel Royal.
Byrd was a Catholic in Protestant England. Giving the circumstance the position he held demanded a certain amount of isolation, but his loyalty to the Queen was not questioned. Sharing the organist position with Tallis was one of Byrd’s responsibility of the Chapel Royal. They formed a close professional and personal relationship which affected their music positively. William Byrd and Thomas Tallis was awarded by Queen Elizabeth I herself a license to print, publish, and import music on ruled music paper. Music paper was ruled or printed with staves for writing music.
The first work under their publication was a collection of Cantiones sacrae dedicated to each year of the queen’s reign. With thirty-four motets total, Thomas Tallis contributed sixteen and William Byrd contributed eighteen. With the help from Tallis, Byrd earlier motets were written in Anglican style, but later began to transition towards Catholic meaning and themes. He dedicated most of these motets to powerful noblemen of that time such as the Lord Chancellor Sir Christopher Hatton, and the Lord Chamberlain Henry Carey. Byrd’s motets are mainly for five voices, with variation of the text and counterpoint. All of the text in Byrd’s motets are sacred in origin. Demonstrating his role as a Catholic composer many of his Motet has political meaning. He composed some popular motets and some that were not as popular. However all of them are Byrd’s quality work