Matthew's Journal

Another music post, I'm afraid. William Byrd wrote three Mass settings, at a time when it was dangerous for him to have done so in latin - the latin Mass was a Papist thing, and there is speculation that it was only Queen Elizabeth's involvement that stopped his recusant Roman Catholocism ruining him. The three Mass settings were written for small recusant choirs to sing. I'm going to write a little about the 5-part setting, as that was the setting atreic and I chose for our wedding service, so it has special significance for me.

It's a concise setting, but unlike his continental contemporaries (such as Palestrina), there is nearly constant counterpoint, which gives the Mass a sense of forward movement, and, I think, adds to its intensity. Byrd is careful to not let the intricate lines confuse the words, however; this is most definitely music for liturgy, not the concert hall. He plays close attention to the sense of the liturgy, too. In the Credo, there is a great surge at "et resurrexit", and similarly the Hosannas of the Sanctus echo the joy in Heaven they describe. There is real subtlety in his use of light and shade in modality, too, particularly in the Agnus Dei - just listen to the first "Agnus dei, qui tollit peccata mundi", and contrast it with the following "miserere nobis", and you'll see what I mean

The recording I have here is on a disk containing Byrd's three Mass settings, and the motet Ave verum corpus, performed by The Tallis Scholars. It's pretty-much spot on.