BYRD, WILLIAM

Elizabethan Catholic composer and organist; b. Lincolnshire, 1543; d. Stondon Massey, Essex, July 4, 1623. He was organist of Lincoln Cathedral at 20 and in 1572 joined Thomas tallis as coorganist of the Chapel Royal, London. He had been appointed a Gentleman of the Chapel in 1570, and retained this office to the end of his life. He is important in the history of English music because of his many influential developments. Solo song, virginal music, fantasias for viols, the verse anthem, and other music for the Anglican church all benefited from his keen musical mind and unusually diversified talents. His greatest contribution, however, was to Catholic church music, which included three collections of Cantiones sacrae (1575, with Tallis; 1589; 1591), two books of Gradualia (1605, 1607), and three Masses (c. 1611).

As a faithful Catholic, Byrd was seldom free from worry, and an impression of his personal plight seems to emerge from the frequently despondent and penitential nature of the texts of certain of his motets. On the other hand, his professional life appears to have elicited a marked degree of respect and tolerance. Byrd is not known to have traveled abroad, and although he knew the work of some of his Continental contemporaries, his style retains a few parochial features. Yet he was a superbly capable contrapuntist, and ever sensitive to the needs of a liturgical text. His early motets include settings of hymns, responsories, and antiphons based on Sarum chants (see sarum use); later works exhibit an almost exclusive concern with the roman rite, although Catholic services could be held only in strictest privacy.

Bibliography: Collected Works, ed. e. h. fellowes, 20 v. (London 1937–50). e. h. fellowes, William Byrd (2d ed. New York 1948). p. c. buck et al., eds., Tudor Church Music, 10 v. (New York 1922–29) v. 2, 7, 9. j. kerman, "Byrd's Motets: Chronology and Canon," Journal of the American Musicological Society (Boston 1948–) 14 (1961) 359–382. j. l. jackman, "Liturgical Aspects of Byrd's Gradualia, " Musical Quarterly (New York 1915–) 49(1963) 17–37. j. harley, "New Light on William Byrd," Music and Letters 79 (1998) 475–488; William Byrd: Gentleman of the Chapel Royal (Aldershot 1997). w. landowska, "English Music of the Past: At the Time of Shakespeare," in Landowska on Music ed. and tr. d. restout (New York 1964) 296–298. t. nasu, "The Publication of Byrd's Gradualia Reconsidered," Brio, 32 (1995) 109–120. j. l. smith, "From 'Rights to Copy' to the 'Bibliographic Ego': A New Look at the Last Early Edition of Byrd's 'Psalmes, Sonets, and Songs,"' Music and Letters, 80 (1999) 511–530. r. turbet, "More Early Printed Editions Attributed to Byrd," Brio, 35 (1998) 105; "Horsley's 1842 Edition of William Byrd and Its Infamous Introduction," Journal of the British Music Society, 14(1992) 36–47.

[d. stevens]