William Byrd is a sixteenth-century musician whom the New York Times has called “an essential English composer for four centuries.” Duke Chapel marked the 400th anniversary of Byrd’s death with special services featuring Byrd’s music. In this episode of Sounds of Faith, we hear excerpts of those pieces sung by the Chapel’s Evensong Singers and learn from Dr. Philip Cave, the Chapel’s conductor-in-residence, about the musical and cultural tensions in Byrd’s life as a composer bridging the Renaissance and Baroque styles and a Catholic in a country dominated by the Church of England.
TRANSCRIPT
James Todd:
Welcome to Sounds of Faith, a podcast exploring traditions of faith, sacred music and spoken word here at Duke University Chapel. William Byrd is a 16th century musician whom the New York Times has called an essential English composer for four centuries. Duke Chapel marked the 400th anniversary of Byrd's death with special services featuring his music, including his well-known setting of the Latin motet Ave Verum Corpus.
We are listening to the Duke Chapel Evensong Singers sing William Byrd's setting of the motet Ave Verum Corpus. I'm James Todd, communications manager here at Duke Chapel, and I'm here with Dr. Philip Cave, the Chapel's conductor- in-residence and director of the Evensong Singers.
Dr. Cave. For those who aren't familiar with William Byrd, can you introduce us to him as a musician and as a historical figure?
Philip Cave:
I think quite simply, he's the greatest English composer of the 16th century. He lived from the 1540s to the 1620s, and during that time composed and published extensively, writing a huge amount of sacred music in Latin and in English, and many influential keyboard and instrumental pieces. He was a lifelong devout, a practicing Catholic at a time when there was much anti-Catholic sentiment in England. He nonetheless remained a prominent court composer under Anglican Queen Elizabeth I and King James I.
James Todd:
And what about this piece we're hearing now? What does it tell us about Byrd as a composer?
Philip Cave:
Ave Verum Corpus is a perfect example of Byrd's sacred music. An exquisite miniature, it's written for just four voices, so it's quite small in scale, but its beauty is just off the charts. The text refers to Christ's very presence in the Eucharist, and what Byrd does by very simple means to create the sense of adoration is really quite remarkable.
Three things in particular can be heard in this short work. First and foremost, the vocal lines are beautifully shaped and respond with directness to the text. Harmonically Byrd is quite adventurous. In the space of the first three chords, for example, he juxtaposes chords that don't really belong together in the musical vocabulary of the period. Thirdly, he manages to use the voices so well. There are plenty of harmonic effects, suspensions and subtle use of dissonance.
There's rhythmic vitality and variety switching from duple to triple patterns. Very effective use of different combinations of voices, such as the two-part pairings at the end on miserere mei. Actually this miserere mei is an addition to the standard text. The use of the first person "have mercy on me," makes it a personal prayer, a particular statement of adoration and faith.
It's one of the best known pieces by Byrd. It's very singable, which contributes, I think, to its success and it's been one of the best known of his Latin works.
James Todd:
So this piece is in Latin. Byrd himself as English and also composes settings for English texts. So why is he working in both languages?
Philip Cave:
Well, he was born actually shortly after the death of Henry VIII and the Reformation in England that created the Church of England. He was a boy when Catholic Queen Mary returned England to Catholicism and to the Latin language, and a teenager when Elizabeth I first was crowned and reintroduced the Book of Common Prayer in English. But he continued to compose Latin t
