Byrd, Miserere mei, Deus

We begin the Lenten Season on a more reflective note, especially compared to last week’s Shrovetide Fair and Petrushka.

William Byrd (c. 1543-1623) made his mark on the early Elizabethan Era. He grew up in the reign of the Mary Tudor (r. 1553-1558), a Roman Catholic. Three motets attributed to Byrd are for the Sarum liturgy (the Catholic rite established in the 11th century in Salisbury), which was favored by Queen Mary. Elizabeth, however, was Protestant. The church needed new music for Protestant worship and Byrd obliged. It was a time of great artistic achievement, but the flowering of the Anglican Church music ranks among the most significant developments. Byrd along with Thomas Tallis played perhaps the most significant role.

But Byrd remained a Catholic throughout his life, and did so at significant risk. Fortunately, his talents earned him many influential supporters, including Elizabeth herself. After a period of about ten years as organist and choirmaster at Lincoln, Byrd was appointed to the Chapel Royal in 1580. Such status must have gone a long way in allowing his Catholicism to be overlooked.

Byrd charted new territory in secular music as well: music for the organ and virginal, pavans and galliards, secular songs and madrigals. The Latin motets, such as the one featured here, were not specifically Catholic. Elizabeth herself liked the Latin service. But Latin motets were also not specifically Protestant. Byrd dedicated his first anthology of Latin motets to Elizabeth and checked all the boxes to avoid censorship. He significantly increased his output of Latin motets in the 1580s and turned more explicitly to music for Catholic services in his later years, including his full settings of the Mass.

Joseph Kerman (writing in Grove’s) sums up Byrd’s influence:

While Byrd’s versatility as a composer is often mentioned, and quite rightly, it is less often pointed out how much he indeed fathered for English music. With his motets, first of all, he achieved nothing less than the naturalization of the high Renaissance church style.

The text comes from Psalm 51.

Miserere mei, Deus: secundum magnam misericordiam tuam.
Have mercy on me, O God, according to Thy great mercy.