Byrd: Mass for Five Voices; Ave verum corpus; Lamentations & Other Works

Featuring

Owain Park
The Gesualdo Six
William Byrd

Did you know?

1/7

Compositional Technique

In 'Afflicti pro peccatis nostris', Byrd embeds a full chant in the fourth voice, forming a cantus firmus around which he weaves a six-part texture.

Composition History

Byrd's Mass for five voices was probably composed to be sung at great personal risk by small gatherings of recusants in domestic chapels.

Composition History

Byrd's Mass for five voices, the heart of this album's collection, was likely the last of three Masses he composed after moving from London to Stondon Massey, Essex.

Compositional Technique

The 'Lamentations' by Byrd, probably composed in the 1560s, features a reconstructed tenor voice part in three sections by Owain Park, the director of The Gesualdo Six.

Composer Biography

Byrd, a recusant Catholic, cleverly chose texts with 'gallows texts'—Latin psalm verses about overcoming opponents—which were later permitted by Queen Elizabeth I.

Recording & Production

The Gesualdo Six recorded this album in All Hallows, Gospel Oak, a church whose construction was completed 280 years after Byrd's death.

Historical Context

William Byrd, born around 1540, lived in a country where King Henry VIII had dismantled monasteries and outlawed the Latin Mass, making it dangerous to compose in a pre-Reformation style.