William Byrd's Musical Compositions

William Byrd was one of the earliest masters of English music and a major figure of the Tudor period. He was born in 1543, probably in Lincolnshire, though neither the place nor his parentage or youth are found in the record. What is known of his childhood is that he attended the St. Paul's School for a time, and it is believed that at least part of his musical training came from Thomas Tallis. The first date in Byrd's life that can be authenticated is February 27, 1563, when Byrd was appointed organist of Lincoln Cathedral. He would be married in 1568 to Juliana Birley, and they had six children. From 1570 to the end of his life he was Gentleman of the Chapel Royal and shared the post of organist with Thomas Tallis after 1572 until the death of the older man in 1585. After that, Byrd occupied the post alone ("Byrd" 72).

It is believed that a number of Byrd's surviving works date from his teens, though this is not certain. The three-part Sermone blando for consort and the second organ Miserer are typical of student works of the period, and they involve strict or free canons over plainsong. The two-part organ hymns and antiphons also seem to come from a different world than Byrd's other music. There are motets attached to his name that seem to be for the Sarum liturgy, which might imply that they were composed before the death of Queen Mary, meaning before Byrd was 16 years of age. The most ambitious of Byrd's student compositions, published in 1605, was Christus

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ght have been composed. His early music is striking in terms of the great number of styles, forms, and genres, and he achieves a sure molding of them into something individual. Among his models were Tallis, Tye, Redford, White, Parsons, and Alfonso Ferrabosco, and he often quoted their material directly in his own works. He wrote organ music as well, and the three linked settings for Clarifica me, Pater, and other works were composed at this time. The third Clarifica me was in four parts and is his first exciting composition. While at Lincoln, Byrd also laid the foundations for what was probably his greatest accomplishment, the perfection of English virginal music from primitive beginnings (Sadie, 1980, 538). The composer's earliest settings of English poems are not madrigals but are strophic songs for one voice and a consort of viols, and songs of this type were then being written by composers such as Parsons, Farrant, and Strogers. Byrd's own Triumph with pleasant melody is an example of the style at its most elementary. More interesting were his consort-song settings of metrical songs, and they show a characteristic advance in their use of vocal lines and consistent imitative counterpoint in the string parts. The orig

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