William Byrd's 'Beata
es virgo Maria'
Was Byrd's Latin church music influenced by the reformations?
 William Byrd's books of Gradualia form two sets of
Catholic liturgical composition~ written around the beginning
of the 17th century and published in 1605 and 1607. The music
of these volumes relates directly to the Roman liturgy setting
the 'proper' texts of the Mass. The five Propers (Introit, Gradual,
Alleluia, Offertory and Communion' are the texts specifically
appropriated to each Sunday of the liturgical year and important
occasions in the liturgical cycle such as Christmas, Easter, Saints'
days and so on. Byrd set the special seasonal texts in the Gradualia;
the motet Beata es virgo Maria is the Offertorium
for votive masses of the Blessed Virgin that might occur during
the Easter season (it has an Alleluia appended to it as
was usual during Eastertide).
Beata es virgo Maria exemplifies Byrd's religious
compositional style at the time but it is clearly not a composition
for the reformed Protestant church: it sets a 'Marian' text and
sets it in Latin in accordance with the Roman liturgical cycle.
The music, on the other hand, does not reveal Byrd as simply upholding
the traditions of compositional style from earlier sacred music
and this may reflect the influence of the Reformation on his religious
music.
Historical context
William Byrd's life spanned all the changes of the English
Reformation during thc sixteenth century corresponding to the
changes of monarchy. Born in 1543, towards the end of Henry VIII's
reign, he had experienced the effects of the dissolution of the
monastic foundations - one of the principal preservers of church
music - the stringent injunctions of Edward VI's Protestantism,
the reinstatement of Catholicism in Mary's reign (1553-1558) and
the political establishment of the English reformed church during
the reign of Elizabeth I (1558-1603). That Byrd remained a Catholic
and continued to write music for the Roman liturgy without needing
to seek exile abroad, as did many of his Catholic musician contemporaries,
is remarkable. That he remained in England is partly explained
by his continuing association with various groups of recalcitrants:
Catholics (and, incidentally, wealthy patrons) engaged in clandestine
celebrations of the Mass. These Masses were carried out at so-called
"Mass centres" hidden away on great country estates
and forming small and committed Catholic communities existing
at some considerable risk.
A possible candidate for patronage of the first book of
the Gradualia is Edward Paston (1550-1630) who ran a Mass
centre at his country house at Appleton in Norfolk; a perhaps
more likely venue for its inception was the Essex manor Ingatestone
near Chelmsford, the home of the Petre family. Byrd and his wife
moved from London to Stondon Massey, a few miles from Ingatestone
in 1593.
Context and style
The context of the Gradualia has a direct bearing
on its style, for since the Propers were written for clandestine
Mass centres they are very likely to have been sung by relatively
small groups of singers in rather more modest environments than
the large cathedrals and collegiate churches. The music of Beata
es virgo Maria reflects this clearly. The points where all
five vocal lines run concurrently are reserved for the musical
"high spots" - on the word creatorum for example,
the climax of all the first imitative entries; and at the end
of the Alleluia. And here is a relatively light texture
for polyphonic writing compared with, say, Tallis's great Whitsun
motet Loquebantur variis linguis or, at the extreme end
of the polyphonic range, Spem in alium.
It is also possible to view the short melismas of Beata
es virgo Maria (only fives notes on the second syllable of
Maria for example; compare this with Tallis's Gaude Gloriosa
where as many as 24 notes can be counted on one syllable at the
word "honorificanda") as resulting from necessity.
With a small group of singers, probably made up of members of
the household of the Mass centre and a few others, possibly with
only one voice to each vocal line, long phrases on one syllable
would have been breathless if not impossible. But did Byrd also
take advantage in the music of the Gradualia of new trends
taking place in general in European vocal writing where there
was certainly a move away from protracted melismatic writing to
more condensed forms and a closer relationship between words and
music?
The resulting style of Beata es virgo Maria, whatever
the reasons and influences behind its style, renders the text
with quite reasonable clarity, a clarity that might well have
satisfied the demands of reformers. After all, the greater part
of the underlay does indeed carry only one note to a syllable.
Clarity of texts and the
Protestant reformers
Thomas Cramner's 'English Litany' of 1544 dealt mainly with
the question of vernacular texts but his resulting work (at the
request of Henry VIII) on English liturgies, prompted the comment,
in a letter to the King, that the music for the liturgy "would
not be full of notes", but should be set '...as near as maybe,
for every syllable a note; so that it may be sung distinctly and
devoutly...'. This echoes Erasmus's (much earlier) comment (in
1516) that "Modern church music is so constructed that the
congregation cannot hear one distinct word" (Erasmus's commentary
on the Neu Testament). Byrd's Beata es virgo Maria is written
in imitative counterpoint (i.e different syllables of the text
are therefore sung simultaneously). Yet Byrd achieved greater
clarity of the words by using different melodic/rhythmic themes
for each new phrase of text: i) Beata es virgo Maria; ii) quae
omnium...; iii) genuisti qui te fecit, and so on. Since the themes
are set more or less with one syllable to a note, each new phrase
is relatively short and immediately distinguishable aurally. This
technique bears comparison with the later motets of Palestrina
whose thematic process also 'blocks' the phrases in a concise
way.
Parallels might be drawn between Tallis's English and Byrd's
Latin church music. Tallis's compositional career had, of course,
begun earlier than Byrd's and he was a master of the older style
of melismatic counterpoint built on a cantus firmus, but in adapting
to the English liturgies he achieved effective results focusing
on the rhythm and accent of English words moving the voice parts
in parallel. The 'Dorian' Te Deum serves as a well-known
example but possibly Tallis saw the style as limited: If ye
love me keep my commandments reflects a need for greater musical
interest with free imitative counterpoint flowing through the
words "...that he may 'bide with you...".
Marking the rhythm and accent of the words by the music
was not reserved by Tallis for English texts, however. O nata
Lux is perhaps a clearer setting of a Latin text than if
ye love me... is of an English one. Perhaps the English compositions
of Tallis shed some light on the apparently new Latin compositional
style in the Gradualia.
Clarity of text and the
Catholic Reformation
Important too is the possible influence of the Catholic
Reformation on the compositional style in the Gradualia.
The Council of Trent's committee of deputies produced the canon
relating to sacred music in September 1562. Like the English and
continental Protestant reformers, the committee addressed itself
to clarity of text music, it demanded, should not "give empty
pleasure to the ear..." but should be constituted "in
such a way that the words may be clearly understood by all...".
"Lascivious and impure" influences in the music were
banned. This last point concerned the use of secular themes in
so-called 'parody' masses and motets such as the popular chanson
L'homme armé, with all its innuendo, which had been
copiously used by European composers (Dufy, Obrecht, Josquin etc.)
as a cantus firmus on which to build mass settings.
For Palestrina and his contemporaries close to Rome this
precept took immediate effect, so that they were more inclined
towards using original themes instead of secular ones and to avoid
overly obscuring the texts with long melismas. At the 24th session
of the Trent council two newly appointed cardinals pursued a course
to ban polyphony altogether in favour of a purely monophonic style,
a move clearly corresponding with the musical viewpoint of Calvin
and Cranmer. The Holy Roman Emperor, Ferdinand I, intervened in
defence of polyphonic music at Mass and polyphony was retained,
but the commission demanded an emphasis on the proper accent of
the Latin words and on reducing melismas. It should nevertheless
be emphasised that this was not the sole precedent for a closer
relationship between words and music: Josquin's vocal music provides
sufficient evidence of a changing focus before the influence of
the Reformations was felt (Josquin died in 1521). In the later
masses and motets of Palestrina, there is a move away from music
shaped completely around pre-existent themes as they were used
in the old style cantus firmus forms.
For William Byrd as much as for Palestrina, the use of shorter
motives gave the composer a rather freer form in which to work
whilst still maintaining an imitative contrapuntal style and it
is this style that is evident in Beata es virgo Maria.
The demands of the Council of Trent as a direct influence
on Byrd's religious music is perhaps not an area well covered
by contemporary research material but Beata es virgo Maria
and the music of the Gradualia in general does suggest
that his polyphonic style around 1600 at least coincided with
those demands: the melismas are short; the Latin text is clearly
accented. Clarity of the text alone brought about in this way
would no doubt have satisfied Protestant reformers too, but the
Latin text and the context of the music places it firmly within
the Roman liturgy. Byrd's imitative contrapuntal writing here
illustrates a style within the polyphonic tradition of earlier
sacred music and yet a fusion of influences that brought about
a freer, more condensed form seems to suggest a balance between
the ideals of church reformers and older musical traditions.
Mark Johnson, Master ASC
A modern edition of William Byrd's Gradualia,
edited by Jon Dixon, is published by
JoEd Music Publications, 234 Stanley Park Road, CARSHALTON, Surrey, SM5 3JP
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