William Byrd’s work is historically significant, but it also has a noticeable influence on the music written today.
Here we have compiled excerpts of conversations with four composers who either wrote works directly influenced by Byrd or grew up singing in choral traditions in which Byrd plays an important role.
Roksanna Panufnik
Panufnik has written a number of choral works for the coronation of Charles III, such as “Coronation Sanctuary”, and in 2014 he composed “Kyrie After Byrd” and is working on another echo. increase.
I am truly in awe of Bird. First, how brave he was to have been a Catholic in such a perilous time as the Tudors and Queen Elizabeth’s reign. It’s no joke. Thank God he was a musician. I think that’s probably what saved him. But I love his harmonies. Byrd, Tallis, Bach — I think their overtone shifts are more emotional and sometimes more radical than many 19th century composers. He was really ahead of his time.
Susie Digby formed this professional choir, the ORA Singers. She wanted to do a project where people could take inspiration from Bird. She specifically wanted him to do something from her five-part Mass. As soon as I heard Kyrie, there was a certain harmonious U-turn in the middle of the road, in the middle of the staff, and I just thought: “Oh, that’s what I want to do.”
James McMillan
McMillan, like Byrd, is a devoted Catholic and recently wrote “You Sacred Muses” for the fretwork of The King’s Singers and The Violet Consort. The piece includes passages that Byrd used to commemorate Thomas Tallis.
I first heard his music and sang his songs for the first time as a teenager while attending school in Scotland. Our high school choir sang part of his four-part Mass. As a fledgling composer, I was very interested in early counterpoint and understood how to deal with complexity, but it was a great lesson in how to make lines and lines work well in music. Inside. His music is known among the singing and choral communities, but perhaps beyond that he is not as well known as he should be. Classical music audiences tend to forget about the pre-Baroque period, which is a shame, because William Byrd is one of the great figures in music history.
Another great motet by Bird is “Justorum animae”. This is basically a memorial or celebration of a martyr. It is clear who he is referring to. He saw people put to death because of their faith. I think Byrd and Tallis knew the people who were arrested, and I think there were several composers who were arrested for some reason during this period. They must have thought it might be on the card. Today, the only comparable situation is a dictatorship behind the Iron Curtain. Shostakovich packed his things, got ready to leave, and lived in fear.
caroline show
Singer, violinist and composer, Shaw won the Pulitzer Prize in 2013 for Partita for Eight Voices.
I grew up singing in the Anglican choir, but I don’t think I sang too many Byrd songs back then. But when I was at Yale, I started singing at Christ Church New Haven, an Episcopalian church. We used to play “Bird for Four” and “Bird for Five”. [two of the Masses] in morning services and motets. One of the biggest influences on my approach to writing and music is the Compline service on Sunday nights at 10pm. I remember two things in particular. “Ne irascaris” is so beautiful. , which starts with the lowest male and then the higher voices come in. And “Justorum animae”.
Singing a bard or a talis, or much of the music of that era, has a physical experience. It is the early sense of polyphony and homophony, enjoying the sounds of voices together, moving the beginnings of harmonies, and the resonance of certain chords making sounds in this beautiful spiritual space. The first part of the Partita I wrote was the Passacaglia. I wanted to hear the sound of many voices whistling, raising their voices, and suddenly bursting into chords. It’s like a bard or talis, a fully voiced chord, its resonance.
Nico Marley
Muhley grew up singing in Anglican churches and continues to write in the Anglican tradition. Several of his works reflect Byrd’s importance, most notably “Two Motets”, orchestrating “Listen” and “Miserere May, Deus”.
For me, the highest form of personal and artistic satisfaction is having my random introit performed at Oxford’s Magdalen College, along with Byrd’s ‘Sing Happy’. For me, that’s the pinnacle. You have this kind of connection with music whose power comes in a way quite different from the Romantic tradition. Of course, in Bard’s case, it’s sacred music, so most of it is designed to make people look up and inward. So the project for me is, how do I bring that into concert music, or how do I write music that’s honest and engaging with that tradition without fuss.
It’s part of my daily listening and part of my year in the context of going to church. Bard is always up for something. I love to think about his political stance, and at the same time I love to think about his activism and his relationship with Catholicism. But I also feel like what he’s going for is a tastier way to relate to ears. That is, if you do not know it, that is, all that was happening in his faith and how it happened, that it was practiced, and that it was practiced I think the place, the ear, can still tell you clearly that there is a deeper well of meaning.
