William Byrd (born probably 1539 or 1540; died Stondon Massey, 4 July 1623) was the greatest English composer of his time. He wrote music of all types that were popular then: keyboard music for virginals and for the organ, vocal music, especially choral music, both for the church (“sacred”) as well as non-sacred (“secular”).
Byrd lived in a time of great changes. Henry VIII had broken away from the Roman Catholic church and had founded the Anglican Church. The monarch (king or queen) was the Head of the Church of England. During Byrd’s lifetime the monarchs who reigned had different ideas about what church music should be like. Byrd was always a Catholic. This sometimes made life difficult for him, but he was always faithful to the monarchy, and he had a lot of tact in dealing with people.
Byrd grew up in the Renaissance period. He lived into the 17th century which is the period known in music as the Baroque period.
Byrd’s music has a lot of variety, largely because of the different ideas people had various times during the period. There were lots of political and religious arguments between groups of people. In the early 17th century people were often sent to prison for writing Catholic music. Byrd seems to have escaped such punishment, although he was involved in several lawsuits. He was lucky that he was able to continue to live as a free man and compose. Being on good terms with the Queen must have helped him.
Byrd wrote music for the Anglican church and for the Roman Catholic Church. His Cantiones Sacrae published in 1589 and 1591 are collections of Latin motets. These are the very best of Byrd’s works, and better than anything that was being written in Europe at that time. He probably wrote them for private (illegal) gatherings of Catholics, so this meant that he could write in whatever style he wanted. His music is very contrapuntal, representing the best of the English Renaissance style.
His Latin church music was forgotten after his death. It only became popular in the early 20th century when it was rediscovered.
Byrd also wrote very beautiful music for viols as well as a lot of keyboard music.
