William Byrd

Total words: 1568
Few composers become as identified with the thematic consistencies of their compositions as William Byrd. His works are easily identified by their dramatic, melancholic demeanor and it is this demeanor that has made his work endure throughout the ages. The variances between his compositions for the Catholic Church and the Church of England are of particular note. It is through the analysis of these variances that a greater understanding of Byrd, both the man and the composer, can be attained.

In order to understand Byrd's works, one must first understand Byrd's origins. He is frequently depicted, both in subjective histories and historical documents, as a steadfast, earnest, tenacious, and rather litigious man, and is regarded by his contemporaries with the greatest esteem. Little is known, however, of Byrd's early life. The fact that he was born in 1543, for example, would have been lost to history were it not written on his will shortly before his death. Even the location of his birth, theorized to be in Lincolnshire, is not a given. His appointment as organist of the Chapel Royal in London on February 27, 1563 is the first authenticated fact of his career, though it has been conjectured that he visited London much earlier and was, in fact, a chorister in 1554 under Thomas Tallis. He was elected a Gentleman Of The Chapel Royal on February 22, 1570, though he did not leave Lincolnshire permanently until 1572. During his tenure at the Chapel Royal, he was involved in several lawsuits regarding real estate transactions, and these lawsuits did nothing to enhance his reputation. However, despite the distractions of his legal battles, he never stopped composing and playing for the Court. While this may seem a rather uneventful chronicle, it serves to show that Byrd never left nor ceased working for the Anglican Church.

Throughout his life, Byrd remained steadfast in declaring himself a Roman Catholic, never wavering or turning his back on the Church, though he and his family were eventually labeled by the Anglican Church as recusant "for not going to church, chapel, or any place of common prayer." It is this dichotomy of steadfast Catholic and composer for the Church of England that would plague him for the rest of his life, though, despite assertions to the contrary, he never truly fell all the way out of favor with the either the Anglican Church or throne. However, his adherence to the Roman Catholic faith while composing for the Anglican Church did not go unnoticed, and the Church persecuted him and his family for his actions. For example, his residences were searched several times for "papist" material or other religious contraband. In the end, his abilities as a composer were so great and the favor that he maintained with both Aristocracy and the throne was so influential that behavior that could be interpreted as traitorous to the Church was tolerated.

This background serves as fertile ground for unusual compositional differences among his compositions for the Anglican and Catholic Church.. Byrd's "Great Service" is one of his earlier choral settings for the Anglican Church, and is almost prototypical of the Anglican style. In this time period and context, the term "Great", of course, was not indicative of quality, but rather of size. In this particular case, the nickname is accurate, in that this setting is, in comparison to other settings for the Anglican Church, longer and more elaborate. The length of the service is obtained, however, not through musical elaboration, but rather through cleverly structured, continually varying repetition of the vocal line. A common device Byrd employed was to have the top voice make a statement, with the lower voices repeating the statement a measure later. This device could even be passed from one voice to another for greater length and variance.

This service setting is complete, being comprised of the 7 main sections used at the time. The Venite, Te Deum, Benedictus sections were used for the Mattins or morning prayer, while the Magnificat and Nunc dimittis sections were used primarily for Evensongs, or prayer services. The final two sections, Kyrie and Creed, were used for Communion, though the Kyrie, being shorter, was much more commonplace. In keeping with the Anglican ideal, the text of the service is set clearly, and not lost or obscured through abstract musical elements of ornamentation. The text setting for the service, despite the Latin titles, is English. During this period, setting a service in Latin would be deemed the act of a papist, and would likely result in the composer being persecuted and possibly executed.

The "Great Service" is initially structured much as other Anglican compositions were at the time, with a choir consisting of mean, two alto, tenor, and bass (MAATB). However, in his interpretation of choral voicing, Byrd showed that changing the voicing of the choir can be used to great effect. For example, the Benedictus section is scored as MMATBB, but at the text "And thou child" changes rather suddenly to the sound of three alto and a tenor. Another example of this device occurs during the Magnificat section, when he utilizes AAATB voicing with the text "As he promised to our forefather Abraham". This usage of more than two alto voices made for a darker, dramatic tone. At the heart of Byrd's mastery, however, is his use of balanced phrases through constant variations of scoring and tonality. His skill at voicing made the Great Service one of his most striking Anglican works.

By comparison, the Catholic Mass For Three Voices that Byrd composed in 1593 at the behest of his most ardent patron, Lord Petre of Essex, is a perfect illustration of a study in contrasts. Byrd was approximately 50 years old when he began work on the Mass For Three Voices, having recently endured the death of his beloved wife and retired from full-time duty at the court. Given these circumstances, coupled with the persecution he continued to suffer due to his religious beliefs, one would not have been surprised to see his composition suffer. It is a pleasant surprise, then, that the Mass is so very cleverly written and voiced.

The Mass is complete, consisting of a Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Benedictus, and Agnus Dei sections. Composed with the purpose of giving small amateur choirs settings that they could hope to master, the Three-part mass features the daunting task of maintaining counterpoint throughout an entire mass with far fewer voices than were commonly used at the time. There are several points of interest throughout the piece. Probably the segment that offers the most contrast with his Anglican compositions is the Kyrie. The almost complete lack of polyphonic treatment in the Kyrie section results in a more simple, straightforward and intimate voicing, whereas the omission of polyphony from his Anglican compositions would have been almost unthinkable. Why Byrd chose to forego polyphony for this section is a mystery. Compositional difficulty would not seem to be an issue, as the other sections of the Mass feature three-voice polyphony used to great effect. It has been theorized that Byrd felt uncomfortable with setting the Kyrie with polyphony, as this was not commonly done in England at the time. It was, rather a Continental trait which Byrd was aware of, and to which he showed an affinity.

Byrd used tone color and word painting to great effect in his Three-voice mass, as well. An example of this would be his setting of the Pleni sunt caeli et terra gloria tua ("Heaven and earth are full of your glory") section of the Sanctus. The tone is dark and brooding, almost to the point of being cynical. Given that Byrd was being persecuted for his beliefs, and that England was in religious turmoil at the time of composition, it is easy to understand why Byrd resorted to this rather ironic setting of what is usually an uplifting section. By contrast, his setting of the same text in the Te Deum section of the Anglican "Great Service" is much more declarative and celebratory.

In writing his Three-voice Mass, Byrd borrowed several elements from his own previous works. In fact, the motifs for the Credo sections for the Three and Four voice Masses are identical, with some slight changes to the text flow and break placement. In some instances, Byrd shows a strong desire to demonstrate the polyphony that he chose to forsake for the Kyrie section. One excellent example of this is during the Credo during the "Et Unam Sanctum Catholicam" ("[I believe] in One Holy Catholic Church") when he cleverly uses voice echoing to make it sound like more than just three voices. These elements are characteristic of his Catholic masses, and were not nearly as common in his Anglican compositions, where his emphasis was on form and content, rather than color and mood.

As much as his compositions for the Anglican and Catholic Churches differ, there are striking similarities. In composing for both Churches, Byrd used innovative and skillful voicing to make his settings seem to have more voice parts that they actually did. Stylistically, Byrd tended to lean towards the more somber, melodramatic melodic tone in both is Catholic and Anglican compositions. His masterful skill at voicing, polyphony and contrapuntal motion are displayed equally in both environments. It is due to this mastery that William Byrd was able to straddle the dangerous line between Catholic and Anglican, papist and reformist, traditionalist and modernist.

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