Byrd, William (EN)

Byrd, Byrde, Bird, Birde, William, *1543 Lincolnshire (?), †4 July 1623 Stondon Massey (Essex), English composer and organist. Byrd’s family may have come from Lincolnshire, where the surname was common; there are also assumptions that he was the son of Thomas Byrd, a member of the royal band during the reign of Edward VI and Mary. As a boy, he probably sang in this band, led by Th. Tallis. The first fully documented information about Byrd’s life is provided in the files of the chapter of Lincoln Cathedral, where he took up the position of organist on 27 February 1563. From 1570, he was a member of the royal band, but until 1572, he was also associated with Lincoln Cathedral. It was probably in this year that he began to share the duties of organist in the same band with Tallis, with whom he had a long-lasting friendship. In 1575, together with Tallis, he obtained from the queen the exclusive privilege to publish sheet music in England. Approx. 1577, Byrd settled in Harlington (West Middlesex), from where he commuted to Greenwich or Whitehall to perform his functions in the band. From 1593, he lived in Stondon Massey near London and for a number of years litigated for his Stondon Place estate. Until his death, he was paid as a member of the royal band, although in the last years of his life, he was released from his duties as organist. Of Byrd’s five children, the second son, Thomas (*c. 1576), was also a musician. Byrd’s most outstanding students include Th. Morley.

Byrd played an important, but unequal in essence, role in various areas of musical creativity. In some genres – such as masses or motets – he continued European traditions, achieving excellent artistic results, in others – such as works of Anglican liturgical music or virginal compositions, especially variations – he was among the pioneers (these works, sometimes of high artistic value, were models for subsequent generations of composers), in others – such as the English madrigal – he transplanted musical achievements already known in other countries to his native land.

In the group of Byrd’s religious works for Latin texts, masses and gradualia were clearly intended for Catholic ceremonies, while the motets included in the collections from 1575, 1589 and 1591 have deliberately selected texts without doctrinally controversial points, and are written in the so-called church tune, i.e. in the tune of the Reformed church organs; some of them have also been preserved with an English version of the text, which clearly proves that they were also performed as part of Anglican ceremonies. The masses, published without the name of the publisher and without the place and year of publication, were intended to add splendour to ceremonies held secretly in the palace chapels of magnates. These are full cycles of the ordinary, including the Kyrie, which was an innovation in England at that time. They are basically written using an imitated technique, but they also have homophonising particles introduced to emphasise certain parts of the text. The pieces from 1575, which were the first motets printed in England, are Byrd’s earliest compositions and show the most traditional features. In addition to simple arrangements using the nota contra notam technique placed in treble or tenor c.f., there are also larger, three-part pieces, imitative and in this respect more homogeneous than later compositions; 3 works from this collection are canons. These motets are characterised by a greater accumulation of dissonant chords resulting from the linear leading of the voices (F–F-sharp, B–C). In later works, there are much fewer combinations of this type, but here too delays and delayed sounds appear at the same time; as a result of close imitation, dissonances are also created, achieved and resolved by jumping, and chords characteristic of the early Baroque are added, such as a chord with an augmented sixth or a Neapolitan sixth. Motets from 1589 and 1591 are in 1–4 parts. The second of these collections also includes homophonising works. The hallelujah ending the last of the 6-voice motets included here is based on a steady bass, which is a certain analogy to Byrd’s original ground compositions. Gradualia are generally smaller pieces than the previous motets, although there are also extended forms, up to 7 parts. In terms of texture, it is noteworthy, especially in the collection from 1605, that the voices are led in parallel thirds and sixths, and in terms of architecture – the introduction of the da capo form in the collection from 1607. The common feature of the works discussed is excellent mastery of compositional technique and, above all, adapting musical expression to the mood of the texts, as well as illustrating individual words or phrases using means typical of all contemporary music of this type – such as changing registers, the appropriate direction of melodic lines, the use of triple and more individual measures. Another common feature (except for the collection from 1575) is the love for contrasts in the cast. This applies to both entire songs and individual episodes within one song. For example, in the collection from 1589, all motets are for 5 voices, but intended for different sets of voices; the sets in 11 three-voice pieces from 1605 are similarly diverse; one of them is also Byrd’s only composition of a Latin text written for vocal voice and 2 violas. In masses, and especially in motets, more voices appear in subsequent episodes, next to the full cast, a combination of different pairs of voices; Byrd also divides the entire ensemble into two smaller ones, which is a clear analogy to the technique of the Venetian school.

The musical setting of the Anglican liturgy was still in its infancy in Byrd’s times (the first important manuscript with this type of composition comes from 1546–47, and the official act recommending the exclusive use of The Book of Common Prayer, composed for the needs of this denomination, was issued in 1549). The easiest and most common way to oppose Catholic music, which included Gregorian chant on the one hand and complex polyphonic structures on the other, was to compose very simple polyphonic pieces using the nota contra notam technique. Therefore, from an artistic point of view, they are of little value. These include Byrd’s preces and responses, along with the psalms and litany attached to them. They are based on the cantus firmus placed in the tenor. In one of these psalms, the composer introduces a new organ introduction, followed by alternating solo sections with organ accompaniment and choral sections, in which he refers to the verse anthem form.

Byrd’s services vary in size and texture. Two of them are full, all-day cycles, composed of Venite, Te Deum, Benedictus, Kyrie, Credo, Magnificat and Nunc dimittis, two include only evening prayers, Magnificat and Nunc dimittis, one, preserved incompletely, consists of Te Deum and Benedictus; Jubilate was used instead of Benedictus during some celebrations. One of the complete cycles was developed as a great service (the text is treated melismatically and the texture is polyphonic, close to the texture of the mass); a characteristic feature of this cycle is the use of two 5-voice choirs singing most often alternately, but there are also 6-, 7- and 8-voice parts; there is a tendency towards polychorality, also visible in many of Byrd’s motets. The second full cycle is of the short service type (the text is treated strictly syllabically, and the texture is nota contra notam); some parts are 4-voice, others 5- and 6-voice. One of the evening services (5-voice) is similarly developed, while the other one is one of the earliest examples of the so-called verse service, i.e. it alternates between vocal solo sections with organ accompaniment and choral sections (5-voice). Most of Byrd’s anthems are of the traditional type, related to the Latin motet; these are generally very simple songs. From the point of view of the development of song forms, his verse anthems are more important, in which, similarly to verse service, choral parts are interspersed with solos accompanied by organs or violas. These compositions by Byrd are among the earliest examples of the genre they represent. In Byrd’s religious songs, the lyrics are most often metrical translations of psalms. Their melodic arrangement is characterised by simplicity. An important structural feature in architecture is the constant division of subsequent lines of text with 1-2 bar purely instrumental interludes. There is a greater variety among secular songs; distinguished here, among others, there is a group of songs for dramas. These are highly expressive pieces, and in the line of the solo voice, clearly contrasting with the lines of the accompaniment, one can find many figures from the arsenal of musical rhetoric.

Byrd’s works, classified by musicological literature as madrigals and described by the composer as sonnets, pastorals or simply songs, are different both in terms of the use of text and texture from typical later English madrigals (e.g. those by Morley or Wilbye) but are close to Byrd’s secular songs. In any case, the work The Fair Young Virgin (a translation of a fragment of Ariosto’s poem Orlando the Mad), published in Yonge’s collection Musica Transalpina in 1588, can be considered – according to this publisher’s definition – a madrigal, and therefore the first printed English madrigal. Byrd’s madrigal works differ from the Italian madrigals of the time, as well as from typical English madrigals, in their almost complete lack of chromaticism; it occurs here even less often than in his religious works.

Of Byrd’s chamber compositions belonging to the In nomine type, i.e. based on the cantus firmus coming from the chorale, the most interesting are the 5-voice pieces in which the melodic lines show clear instrumental features. 5- and 6-voice fantasies show similar features. In all chamber fantasies, imitation structures prevail. Some of them consist of contrasting particles, which brings them closer to the instrumental baroque canzona. The two fantasies are variations based on the ground bass. Virginal fantasies are also multi-particle works with a predominance of imitation particles. They differ quite significantly in the number and size of particles and the degree of accuracy in imitating thematic phrases. A characteristic feature of many of them is the presence of a distinctly dance-like particle, like a chime. Many fantasies feature echo effects. What is also noteworthy is the richness of rhythm and even polimetry between the left and right hand. The texture of these compositions is mostly organ-like rather than virginal. The features of keyboard music are most clearly visible in the pieces, the essence of which are rich, virtuoso figurations transferred from register to register and supported by chord accompaniment. Fantasies also include songs in which a scat march (Ut re mi fa sol la) or third progressions (Ut mi re fa…) are used as phrases. After rhythmisation, these phrases become the basis for imitation, and in equal cases, they are developed as c.f. against the background of which new phrases are imitated. A chime-like particle is also found in these compositions.

Variations constitute perhaps Byrd’s greatest contribution to the development of European compositional technique. Their themes are folk songs, mostly English. Only 4 of the 15 are in even time; the remaining ones, in three dimensions, clearly have a dance character. The number of variations within the cycle ranges from 2 to 21. In the most frequently repeated type of variation, the melody of the theme is given in the highest voice – unchanged or sometimes ornamented – and often appears in another voice. Only part of the theme’s melody is used many times in variations. In a dozen or so variations, the theme does not appear at all, and in these Byrd departs furthest from the type of variations observed in Cabezon, which can be considered a previous stage in the development of this form. In several cycles, most often in variations in which the melody of the theme does not appear, the binding factor is the repetition of the melody of the bass voice. In those few variations in which neither the theme nor the bass line appear, the harmonic pattern remains the element maintaining cyclical coherence. Figuration is most often the basis for creating subsequent variations. Byrd relatively rarely ornaments the entire melody of a theme, but more often the unchanged melody is accompanied by a new phrase or instrumental figure giving uniformity to a given variation. In many variations, this phrase is derived from the character of a fragment of the theme. Shorter cycles are generally uniform in expression and technically simpler, while longer ones show excellent distribution of the increase in tension and expressive contrasts between individual variations or their groups. Polyphonic thinking still plays a fundamental role in Byrd’s cycles, but frequent changes in the number of voices and the use of typically instrumental figures can be considered the first manifestations of a new keyboard texture. A special type of Byrd’s variations are cycles based on a constant bass (ground), all in three dimensions. The size of the ostinato and the number of repetitions range from a 1-bar pattern appearing 140 times to a 32-bar pattern appearing 6 times. 8-, 12-, 16- and 32-bar melodies are song basses. During the course of the piece, the ground is sometimes slightly transformed, sometimes moved to a higher voice, or exceptionally omitted altogether. New motifs or figures resulting from the keyboard technique are developed over subsequent repetitions of the ostinato; they appear in separate episodes that do not always coincide with ground occurrences. In some cycles, such episodes are combined in pairs using the same thematic material, but placed in the right or left hand. These types of solutions also occur in the cycles discussed previously.

The dance nature of Byrd’s variations allows them to be traced back to the 16^th-century practice of playing dances, in two types. Most dances were composed of 3 or 2 melodic sections, each of which was first performed in a simple, unadorned form and then repeated in the form of an ornamental variation. These variations were initially improvised, but over time they increasingly appeared recorded in sources. A special type of dance was passamezzo, in which variations, sometimes very numerous, were based on a constant bass and harmonic pattern. Both types are observed in Byrd’s dances. Two pairs of pavan-galliard belong to the passamezzo type, and the number of variations of the scheme (antico in one pair, moderno in the other) reaches eight. Byrd’s remaining pavans and galliards are usually composed of three particles, most often 8-bar, each of which is repeated in variations. Pavans and galliards put together in pairs only exceptionally show melodic or harmonic relatedness, most often they are not related materially. What is noteworthy in these works is the predominance of polyphonic texture, especially in comparison to contemporary Italian collections of dances for keyboard instruments, which feature almost exclusively pure homophony. Byrd’s polyphony is typically instrumental here, both by shaping imitated motifs and by being closely related to the technical possibilities of keyboard instruments. There are also pieces that are less polyphonic and more virtuosic. As their opposite, we can mention one of the pavans, a 3-voice one in which the two higher voices are led in the canon. Many of Byrd’s dances are based on interesting modulation plans, in which, in addition to combining keys that are a fifth apart, there is often a third ratio, and less often also a second ratio. In cadences, an oscillation between elevated and non-elevated seventh degree often occurs. The structure of some of Byrd’s almandos is interesting. On the one hand, there are two particles, each of which is repeated in variations, and on the other hand, the whole structure returns in a variational approach, and the binding element is not so much the melody in the upper voice, but the bass line and the harmonic pattern. As a result, these almandos come closer to the passamezza structure and ground variations.

Literature: E.H. Fellowes The English Madrigal Composers, Oxford 1921, 2^nd ed. 1948; F. Howes William Byrd, London 1928; E.H. Fellowes William Byrd, London 1936, 2^nd new ed. 1948, 5^th new ed. 1967; T. Dart and P. Brett Songs by William Byrd in Manuscripts at Harvard, “Harvard Library Bulletin” XIV, 1960; J. Kerman Byrd’s Motets: Chronology and Canon, “Journal of the American Musicological Society” XIV, 1961; P. Brett The English Consort Song, 1570–1625, “Proceedings of the Royal Musical Association” LXXXVIII, 1961/62; H.K. Andrews Transposition of Byrd’s Vocal Polyphony, “Music & Letters” XLIII, 1962; J.L. Jackman Liturgical Aspects of Byrd’s “Gradualia,” “The Musical Quarterly” XLIX, 1963; J. Kerman On William Byrd’s “Emendemus in Melius,” “The Musical Quarterly” XLIX, 1963, reprint in: Chormusik und Analyse, ed. H. Poos, Moguncja 1983; H.K. Andrews The Technique of Byrd’s Vocal Polyphony, London 1966; P. 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McCarthy Liturgy and Contemplation in Byrd’s Gradualia, New York 2007; D. Trendell Byrd’s Musical Recusancy, “Musical Times” CXLVIII, 2007; S. Cole Who is the Father? Changing Perceptions of Tallis and Byrd in Late Nineteenth-Century England, “Music & Letters” LXXXIX, 2008; K. McCarthy Byrd’s Patrons at Prayer, “Music & Letters” LXXXIX, 2008; J. Grimshaw Fuga in Early Byrd, “Early Music” XXXVII, 2009; D. Fraser Sources of Texts for Byrd’s 1611 Psalmes, “Early Music” XXXVIII, 2010; J. Harley The World of William Byrd. Musicians, Merchants and Magnates, Farnham 2010; J.L. Smith Unlawful Song. Byrd, the Babington Plot and the Paget Choir, “Early Music” XXXVIII, 2010; W.K. Kreyszig William Byrd’s My Ladye Nevells booke (1591): Negotiating between the stile antico and stile moderno in the Solo Keyboard Repertory and D.J. Smith Making connections: William Byrd, “Virtual” Networks and the English Keyboard Dance in: Interpreting Historical Keyboard Music. Sources, Contexts and Performance, ed. A. Woolley and J. Kitchen, Burlington 2013; K. McCarthy Byrd, Oxford 2013; J.L. Smith Verse and Voice in Byrd’s Song Collections of 1588 and 1589, Suffolk 2016; R. Turbet Two invisible songs by Byrd, “Musical Times” CLVIII, 2017; P. Graham Intimations of eternity in the creeds from William Byrd’s five-voice Mass and Great service, in: Music preferred. Essays in musicology, cultural history and analysis in honour of Harry White, ed. L. Byrne Bodley, Vienna 2018; H. Sequera Reconstructing William Byrd’s consort songs from the Paston lutebooks: a historically informed and computational approach to comparative analysis and musical idiom, “Early Music” XLVII, 2019; M.K. Long Reassessing the Plagal Cadence in Byrd and Morley, “Music Theory Online” XXVIII, 2022.