William Byrd
Born 1543, Lincoln[?].

Died 4 July 1623, Stondon Massey.

Certainly among the three or four greatest composers (with Palestrina, Victoria, and Lassus) of the late Renaissance, Byrd excelled in all the genres and styles of his age: sacred music for both the Catholic and Anglican rites, secular vocal music that strongly influenced the English madrigalists, fine consort music and consort songs, and an outstanding body of harpsichord music that puts him at the head of the school of English virginalists. (A virginal is a one-manual, cross-strung chamber harpsichord. The English repertoire is found in three big collections, notably a manuscript of c. 1615 now called "The Fitzwilliam Virginal Book.") His sacred music was all the more remarkable in that he managed to guard his Catholic faith through the English Reformation, when that was altogether dangerous.

He was a student of the famous composer Thomas Tallis. In 1563 he was appointed organist and choirmaster at Lincoln Cathedral (north England); later he became a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal and its organist. Queen Elizabeth granted Byrd and Tallis a patent for music printing and the sale of manuscript paper, and most of his best work was thus published during his lifetime. The three masses are capital examples of imitative vocal polyphony at its most sonorous.

Works

Sacred Vocal Music
Masses (3, c. 1592-95)
in 3 parts
in 4 parts (1592-93)
    Agnus Dei
in 5 parts
Gradualia (for the Mass Proper, 2 vols., 1605-1607)
Cantiones sacrae (motets, 3 vols., 1575-91)

Services (4; Anglican)

Vocal Chamber Music

Psalms, songs, sonnets

Instrumental and Keyboard Music
Fantasias, grounds, dances, etc.