Tallis, Byrd and the Tudors Sacred Music

This is the story of Thomas Tallis and William Byrd

two musicians living in an age of uncertainty

500 years ago

in England where only one religion was allowed,

where worship was compulsory

and where every time a new monarch came to the throne,

they changed the national faith.

Two composers in an age of adversity for whom choral music was the profoundest expression

of deeply held religious beliefs.

Through the reigns of six monarchs and 100 years of social and religious upheaval

singing the Lord's song in a strange land.

ORGAN PLAYS

My journey will take me from the solemnity of cathedrals

to the despair of the place of execution.

From the private chapel of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I

to the Holy Mass celebrated in secret, deep in the English countryside,

as I discover how two Roman Catholic musicians, Thomas Tallis and his younger colleague William Byrd

survived and flourished during the tempestuous foundation

of the Protestant Church in England.

There are few documents from Thomas Tallis's long life.

No birth certificate,

no accounts of his parents

or of where he learned to write and to sing.

In a sense, the only biography is the music he composed.

CHOIR SINGS IN PARTS

One of the first facts we can be sure of

is that in his early 20s he was appointed organist

at this small and rather undistinguished priory in Dover.

He like everyone else was Roman Catholic,

growing up and learning his music in the great Medieval tradition

of plainchant and polyphony.

# Nobilis

# humilis

# Magne

# martyr

# stabilis

# Habilis

# utilis

# comes venerabilis... #

But in the five years he spent here beside the sea

his world changed.

Or rather Henry VIII changed the world.

Henry's Act Of Supremacy declared the King to be "the only supreme head on Earth

"of the Church Of England."

He backed this up with his Treasons Act, which made it High Treason, and therefore punishable by death,

to refuse to acknowledge this fact.

Officially, England was no longer a Roman Catholic country.

CHOIR SINGS

Thomas Tallis was a gifted musician at a time when virtually the only outlet for his talents

was through the Church.

The huge upheavals in religion and society over the coming decades

are central to the life of this man who, whatever his own private faith,

worked diligently at the business of making sacred music.

These are the original main gates of Waltham Abbey.

When Tallis passed through them in the autumn of 1538

to take up his post as organist,

it must have been with mixed feelings.

# Gloria in excelsis Deo. #

At the time, Waltham Abbey was a massive establishment,

the church, the only substantial surviving building, was four times' its current size.

CHOIR SINGS "Mass: Puer Natus" by Tallis

Harry Christophers is the artistic director of The Sixteen,

a choir of specialist early music singers.

He chose Waltham Abbey as the space in which to record the music for this programme

because of its powerful association with Tallis.

What amazes me about his music is the amount I, as a conductor, can interpret.

I look at things like the Puer Natus Mass

which on a page looks very confined,

but actually it can take a vast amount of interpretation.

For me, Tallis is first and foremost a great composer,

one of the finest, and I have to constantly remind myself

that Tallis worked for the Church.

Those were the jobs in music in the Tudor times.

However, for the previous couple of years, since Henry VIII's break with the Church of Rome,

monasteries, priories and abbeys had been closing down left, right and centre.

CHOIR CONTINUE TO SING "Puer Natus"

Monks were forced to declare that their way of life

was a vain and superstitious round of dumb ceremonies.

They were evicted, their lands were seized, chapels and cloisters left empty or demolished.

Any resistance was punished by execution.

MUSIC: "Mass: Puer Natus" by Tallis

By now, monasteries were closing at a rate of 20 a month.

The new organist must have been well aware that Waltham Abbey's days were numbered.

In fact, it was less than two years before the Abbey was finally dissolved

and Thomas Tallis was looking for another job.

Although documents relating to Tallis are rare,

there are some and I've been told that the British Library in St Pancras

held something rather special.

Nicolas, you've found a book

for me to see

and I don't know anything about it really.

-But it's something to do with Tallis.

-Yes.

-So show me.

It's written by a man called John Wylde who's written his name at the front.

So, "This book belongs to John Wylde,

"sometime precentor at the monastery of the Holy Cross in Waltham."

-So he's from Waltham Abbey.

-Which is where Tallis worked.

This must have been part of the library of Waltham Abbey

and it's got lots of different music theory treatises in it,

-including at one point a few pictures as well...

-That's rather lovely.

..showing the way that the breve can be divided into semibreves and so on.

-Beautiful.

-And then at the end of it is Tallis's signature.

He's written "Thomas Tallis". You can ignore that bit because it...

It looks more like...

It's just that one at the top.

It's such a beautiful signature.

It's quite spidery but it's rather elegant.

This is the only example we have of his handwriting.

-No letters survive, certainly no music.

-Yeah.

There's no reason to doubt that it is Tallis himself.

Unfortunately we've stamped over it. SIMON RUSSELL BEALE LAUGHS

-Not you personally.

-But you can still make it out.

Of course Tallis was at Waltham Abbey until its dissolution in 1540

so I imagine he took this book away with him

when the Abbey was dissolved.

Maybe they gave it to him because they had no further use for it.

When you say they had no further use for it,

do you think that what was in this book was somehow Catholic and therefore of no use

-or just...?

-Well, it's Catholic in the sense that all of it is about the performance of plainchant.

That was Catholic and now abolished, so it was no use to anybody.

THEY SING IN PARTS

We don't know when Tallis the singer became Tallis the composer.

The body of his work that has survived is relatively small and almost impossible to date.

But all display his ear for subtle melody and his gift for close harmony.

Tallis's music has this amazingly ethereal quality

and in something like O Nata Lux

it's an amazing gem.

Within that, he's produced something that has an incredible celestial quality.

It's the way Tallis distributes the voices in a very sensitive way.

# ..effici

# Tui beati corporis. #

He does set very much one note to a syllable,

but there is always a part that has a little melisma, a little moving line,

that adds a nuance to it.

That gives the music a very tender approach.

# Tui

# beati

# corporis. #

For me, as a conductor, there's no doubt about Tallis's music, that all the lines are very singable.

They lie very well for each voice.

You can't say that of every composer of the Tudor period.

# O Lord, in thee is all my trust

# Give ear unto my woeful cries

# Refuse me not, that am unjust

# but bowing down thy heav'nly eyes

# behold... #

Tallis was one of the first professional musicians.

Quite simply an employee who looked to the Church

to provide him with work,

whatever the political or religious climate.

His new job as a professional singer or lay clerk was here in Canterbury,

at the heart of a religious revolution,

lending his voice to the development of a new style of liturgy for the Church Of England.

# No, no, not so! Thy will is bent... #

Gone was the Latin language and the elaborate ornamental ritual associated with it,

to be replaced by plain, simple music with the words in English.

# ..where angels sing continually

# To thee be praise, world without end. #

But he didn't stay here for long.

He'd landed a job for life as a member of His Majesty's private chapel choir.

# If ye love me

# keep my commandments

# and I will pray the Father

# and he shall... #

I think what's important to remember is that singing the music for the Daily Office

and composing the music were not two different things. They were the same thing.

You were employed to make music

for the devotions of the Chapel Royal

in a most literal way.

You'd write it, turn up, hand it out and sing it.

So a lot of the gentlemen are providing music on a week-in, week-out basis

for the Chapel to sing.

# ..he may abide with you for ever... #

Can you tell me when it was built?

The room itself dates from the end of the 15C.

But it was turned into a chapel in about 1530 by Henry VIII

when he appropriated this complex of buildings from a leper hospital

-and turned it into a royal palace and that's when this room became a chapel.

-So, in fact...

Thomas Tallis would have known this room.

Certainly he would have done.

There's a certain amount here that Tallis would recognise,

principally the ceiling, which was painted probably by Holbein,

but certainly in honour of Henry's fourth marriage in 1540 to Anne of Cleves.

-Not a successful marriage.

-Well, no, I think the ceiling was probably the best thing that came put of it!

I think it's important to be clear that the Chapel Royal in one sense is not really a place at all.

It's a body of people, part of the monarch's personal entourage, part of the household

and it's a body of clergy and musicians that attends the spiritual needs of the sovereign,

wherever the sovereign happens to be.

The King would move around an awful lot, partly to go hunting

and partly to impress and intimidate nobles in various parts of the country.

And, in Tallis's time, trying to work out what his first title would be...

-The Gentlemen Of The Chapel Royal.

-Oh, right.

It was all very much on order of seniority.

You joined at the bottom of the list and you move up the list as people die.

# ..e'en the spirit of truth. #

Still a young man,

somewhere in his mid-thirties,

but his talent has thrust him into the heart of the state,

serving first Henry VIII and then his son Edward VI,

as the new religion found its feet.

But the establishment of a Protestant church in England

was about to come to a sudden stop

as Henry's eldest daughter, Mary Tudor, took the throne.

She re-established the Catholic faith and promptly executing Protestants.

Bloody Mary sent almost 300 martyrs to their death during her five-year reign.

Tallis, as a loyal member of Her Majesty's Chapel,

was instrumental in his employer's policy

of re-imposing the Catholic liturgy.

THEY SING "Mass: Puer Natus" by Tallis

She also found a suitable husband to father a Catholic heir.

Here at Winchester Cathedral Mary married Philip of Spain.

Tallis, as a member of Her Majesty's choir,

was at the ceremony.

The marriage could hardly be described as a happy one

and Mary died childless.

Under the terms of her father Henry VIII's will,

her half-sister took the throne.

The new queen, Elizabeth, was determined that Protestantism should return.

# O ye tender babes

# of England. #

Citizens now had either to convert back to the Church of England

or hold onto the old faith in secret.

Creative, adaptable and immersed in the English choral tradition,

Tallis seems to have managed to balance his private religious beliefs

with the demands made by the new Anglican Church.

#..whereby you may do your duty to God... #

My guess is that Tallis was a Roman Catholic at heart

all the way through his life.

But, like any other professional musician,

you're not going to get yourself sacked

by speaking out and not toeing the line.

# Make glad your parents... #

Tallis is a very practical composer. He does what's expected of him.

He's a pure professional.

Any professional would say, "This is what I do. If the rules have changed, I'll change with them."

Elizabeth was very keen to promote a new form of singing

to complement the liturgy.

"For the comforting of such that delight in music," she said,

"it may be permissible to sing a hymn or suchlike song

"to the praise of Almighty God."

This hymn tune, composed by Tallis, for a collection made by the first Anglican archbishop, Matthew Parker,

may be familiar.

# Why fum'th in fight the Gentiles spite

# In fury raging stout?

# Why tak'th in hand the people fond

# Vain things to bring about?

# The Kings arise the Lords devise

# In counsels met thereto

# Against the Lord with false accord

# Against His Christ they go. #

Elizabeth had issued injunctions forbidding elaborate Church music.

She required a modest and distinct song which may be as plainly understood

as if it were read without singing.

This, of course, did not apply to her own church services.

Although technically speaking, this was a place where Protestant worship was held,

it was a private household chapel of the monarch, not a public space.

A lot of the people who visited it were foreigners and Roman Catholics.

The chances are that what went on there was a bit of a compromise.

The services could be held in Latin, they could therefore include quite a lot of Latin texts of music.

I think it would be wrong to think of the Chapel Royal as being a place where staunch Anglicanism

is being bashed down your throat. Quite the opposite, I think.

Elizabeth's private attitude was perhaps unexpectedly tolerant.

"There is one Jesus Christ, one faith, the rest is dispute about trifles."

And then William Byrd, a gifted young singer, choirmaster,

organist and composer,

was recruited by Her Majesty's Chapel.

Tallis at that time was approaching 70 and had already served the Chapel Royal for 30 years.

But over the next decade he and Byrd would work closely together

to the greater glory of God and of course of Queen Elizabeth.

Elizabeth claimed to have, in her own words,

"an affection for the science of music."

In recognising that she had the country's two greatest composers in her choir,

she gave them a gift.

The monopoly for printing music in England.

The business wasn't exactly a success.

But they published one book, Cantiones Quae Ab Argumento Sacrae Vocantur

composed by Thomii Tallisio et Guilielmo Birdo.

They couldn't flatter Elizabeth enough.

The book is dedicated to the most high, mighty and magnificent Empress.

They lavished praise upon her musical skills.

"Compared to the greatest masters," they said, "you easily surpass them,

"whether by refinement of voice or agility of fingers."

At this point, Queen Elizabeth had been on the throne for 17 years.

Tallis and Byrd decided not only to incorporate that number into the structure of their book,

their 34 songs, 17 by each composer, but they also decided to let it echo within the songs themselves.

Within the heart of Tallis's extremely complex piece, Miserere Nostri Domine,

is a 17-note melody.

# Miserere

# nostri

# Domine

# Miserere

# nostri... #

I didn't actually check whether there were 17.

17 notes to either a syllable or a change of note.

And that can only work if it's had some, presumably, emotional or spiritual impact.

The amazing thing about this is it's a technical feat of just amazing brilliance.

But like all feats like this, in the hands of some composers,

they can just be technical, academic and boring.

But in the hands of Tallis, it's the most phenomenal piece.

Let's just hear the first few bars.

THEY SING IN PARTS "Miserere Nostri Domine" by Tallis

Tallis must have felt an affinity for his junior colleague.

Perhaps he saw something of himself in this talented young professional musician

and like him William Byrd seems to have come from humble origins.

The first sure fact we have about William Byrd's life

is that in the fifth year of Queen Elizabeth's reign

he came here to the Cathedral Church Of The Blessed Virgin Mary in Lincoln

to take up his post as organist and master of the choristers.

THEY SING "Christus Resurgens" by Byrd

Byrd spent 10 years in Lincoln.

He lived here in Minster Yard in a house that's no longer standing.

He married a local woman, Juliana Birley, at St Margaret's-In-The-Close Church,

which was around here, although it's been long since demolished.

This is Byrd's first workplace.

The choir stalls, which have barely changed over the last 400 years.

I think we can imagine him here, a young man, gifted,

perhaps ambitious,

producing the streamlined music for the Anglican Church,

all the while surrounded by this very elegant but heavily ornamented stone and woodwork,

a nagging reminder of the old faith.

ORGAN PLAYS

Lincoln Cathedral has an archive of documents that goes back nearly 1,000 years.

Here we have the official record of William Byrd's appointment

as organist and master of the choristers here at Lincoln Cathedral.

It's like a minute book. It's a record of the meetings of the Dean and Chapter.

This is all in a typical Elizabethan secretary hand.

It's mostly in Latin, which was the great language of legal records.

And here we have the official record of William Byrd's appointment.

Point him out for me, just for the sheer thrill of it.

Here we have, "To all faithful Christian people,

"know that we have granted the office of Master of the Choristers

to our beloved in Christ - delicto nobis in christo -

Willalmo Byrd - William Byrd

for the term of life.

ORGAN MUSIC

One of the few church organ pieces of Byrd's to be preserved

is this, an improvisation on the starting note the choir master gives to the choir.

ORGAN MUSIC

And another entry in the account book uncovers an interesting story.

September 1570. Basically, the chapter is insisting that in services,

rather than playing the organ, he was just to give the starting note for the choir

and then to sing with the choir, and not to play the organ.

Now this suggests to me that Byrd had been experimenting on the organ

and that the Dean and chapter didn't like this.

It was not simple enough,

it wasn't the basic Puritan simplicity that was what they wanted.

But it was in a ledger book for 1567 that we found something

that made me profoundly grateful for Elizabethan bureaucracy.

There we are.

This particular section here deals with

miscellaneous payments made to various cathedral staff and employees.

Over here we have this amazing signature - Wyllyam Byrde

Oh, wow!

-Master of the choristers.

-Oh, wow!

Acknowledging nine shillings for livery,

which would be for whatever he was required to wear during cathedral services.

This is extraordinary, it's a very, very, very elaborate signature.

I think we get some impression from that of the way Byrd saw himself.

He wasn't shy and retiring.

He knew he was a great musician and I think that says it.

How thrilling to see it.

-Yes.

-It's a beauty.

Seeing Byrd's signature gave me a powerful sense of direct connection with him.

But can modern techniques of handwriting analysis

provide a further insight into his psychological make-up?

This signature of William Byrd's

appears on the account books of Lincoln Cathedral,

where he worked as a young man in his twenties,

as "pulsator of the organs".

I love that phrase!

And as Master of the Choristers

And you see it looks stiff, it looks formal,

it's decorated with these figure of eight patterns

which are about the image that he's trying to create.

Signature is about your public image.

And you sense, from this,

that William Byrd is trying to project an image

of, maybe being quite grand,

maybe he's trying to grow into this job that he's been given as a young man.

But, as he finishes these figure of eight patterns,

he dispenses with the last loop very swiftly.

And I sense in this a certain impatience with this formality -

that although he'll go along with it,

really that is not what is essential to him,

and he's really interested in deeper, more spiritual concerns.

Fifteen miles west of central London,

and squeezed in between Heathrow airport and the M4 motorway,

lies the Middlesex village of Harlington.

After leaving Lincoln, this is where Byrd and his family settled.

Apparently taking possession of Harlington Manor

The Manor is long gone

and there's no real trace of Byrd or the village that he knew here now.

As ever, it's a few surviving documents that give us a clue

that at this point, there are two of particular significance.

Firstly there's a petition to Her Majesty

written jointly by Tallis and Byrd.

Curiously it concerns neither music nor religion,

but property.

Pleading poverty, they ask Her Majesty to grant them a bundle of leases

for nearly a dozen properties scattered across southern England.

These were lands seized after the dissolution of the monasteries.

and their leases entitled Tallis and Byrd to various rents and tithes.

So our two composers were landlords.

The other document from the same year is perhaps more telling.

On a list compiled by the recently enthroned Bishop of London

of those who were guilty of not attending church in his diocese

is the entry, "Wife of William Byrd, one of the gents of Her Majesty's chapel."

The first explicit evidence of the family's Roman Catholicism.

CHOIR SINGS

Being a Catholic at this time was a dangerous game.

Recusancy, which means refusal,

was punished by increasingly harsh fines.

£20 for not attending a place of common prayer.

and even more for singing, saying or even just hearing Mass.

CHOIR SINGS

Over the years, Byrd and his wife, and his servants,

were repeatedly named for refusing to worship at this church.

The punishments not deterring them, who knows.

Byrd, it seems, was a stubborn, strong-minded individual.

Perhaps a sense of persecution even strengthened his faith.

Then, at the age of 80,

Tallis dies.

That's all we know.

But Byrd was moved to write an extraordinary elegy to his old friend.

The imagery is pagan, we don't know who wrote the words.

It could have been William Byrd himself.

But the sentiments are heartfelt.

# Ye sacred Muses, race of Jove,

# Whom Music's lore delighteth,

# Come down

# Come down

# from crystal heav'ns above. #

Tallis was buried in Greenwich.

His grave has disappeared

but a few words from his epitaph have survived.

"As he did live, so also did he die,

"In mild and quiet sort, (O! Happy man);

"To God full oft for mercy did he cry,

"Wherefore he lives, let death do what it can."

# Tallis is dead

# Tallis is dead

# And music dies

# And music dies

# And music dies. #

In the years that followed Tallis's death

Byrd began to publish regular collections of his vocal music,

sacred and secular.

Or as he termed it, "Some of gravity, others of mirth."

# For pleasure, for pleasure, for pleasure

# All for joy, full time for joy, full time.

# For joy, full time. #

Designed to be used in private music making,

the books were carefully dedicated

to prominent and influential members of the Elizabethan aristocracy

One such family were the Peters of Ingatestone Hall.

Faithful servants of the crown, keen amateur musicians,

and recusant Catholics.

-Good morning. Do come in.

-Nice to meet you.

The present Lord Peter is the 18th holder of the title.

Byrd was a friend of both the first lord,

and of his father the Tudor politician, William Peter.

Let's go through there and then round to your right.

And that's a Tudor portrait.

That's right. That's Sir William who was John, the first lord's father.

He was the one who really founded the family fortunes.

A shrewd politician.

He was. He was secretary of state to all four Tudor monarchs.

But still remained a Catholic, or at least the household here was Catholic.

He just regarded his public life as totally separate from his private life, really, in essence.

Sir William built this house on land surrendered by the church

after the dissolution of the monasteries.

'His son and heir, John, was another astute politician -

'defiantly retaining his Catholicism

'even whilst giving loyal service to Queen and country.'

He went out of his way

to move against Catholics in order to sort of,

in a way, sabotage what was going on.

So he actually prosecuted Catholics or...?

Well, he was... They had a commission to discover Catholics

in which he was one of the joint chairmen

and, er, they weren't very good at it.

THEY CHUCKLE

Very good. Very good.

-And these portraits here?

-That's him in that portrait there.

A good-looking chap.

In the winter of 1585,

a servant was sent by the Peter family

to fetch Mr Byrd down from London.

he arrived with a few fellow musicians

and spent the Christmas holiday here in private celebration.

There would have been a Catholic priest in attendance

which, in effect, would have made the whole event treasonable.

The fact that it was illegal to celebrate Mass

didn't deter Byrd from publishing a trio of full Latin Masses for three, four and five voices.

And these represent a new phase in Byrd's career -

liturgical music written specifically for performance in secret.

BYRD'S LATIN MASS IN HARMONY

That was lovely, Harry and the choir. It's lovely to hear the four voices, isn't it?

And here you get that sense of...

-It's so intimate.

-..something illicit, actually.

-Yes.

Presumably Byrd...was trying to do something different

-in that it was a new situation for a new composer.

-Yes.

I mean, Byrd here, he's writing it in private.

And so the three, the four, the five part Masses are incredibly intimate, personal

statements, really. Everything's very individual. He's starting with this beautifully simple line...

CHORISTERS SING IN THE ROUND

# Agnus Dei

Agnus Dei

# Qui tollis peccanta

Qui tollis peccanta

# Mundi

Mundi. #

Very simple. And then suddenly he will allow this very expressive line to come from the bass later on.

# Miserere nobis. #

-That's quite elaborate.

-Incredibly elaborate.

And then when he brings the final dona in, it's one of total intimacy,

total plaintive nature.

# Dona nobis

# Dona nobis

# Nobis dona nobis

# Dona nobis pacem

# Dona nobis pacem... #

Mixed single voices.

You are literally passing one phrase and one line very delicately

and quietly from voice to voice.

It was lovely to do it that way

at Ingatestone Hall and it was absolutely right for that setting.

It's very still and very quiet in there. I think it definitely made sense.

Byrd sincerely believed in the redemptive power of singing.

He wrote that "since it is so good a thing, I wish all men would learn to sing".

He believed it was easily taught and quickly learnt.

And that the better the voice,

the better it is to the honour and glory of God.

Byrd's compact and intimate Masses and motets -

their concentration of emotional energy and superlative technical skill -

is a practical demonstration of that philosophy in very troubled times.

Many Catholics suffered gruesome deaths because of their beliefs.

Byrd's response to the public execution of the Jesuit preacher Edmund Campion

was this elegantly subversive song.

# Why do I use

# My paper ink and pen?

# And calm my wits

# From whence there was truth said... #

This is part of a tunnel through which prisoners were taken to their death at Tyburn -

the present day Marble Arch.

After the publication of Decem Rationes - his ten reasons against the Anglican Church -

Edmund Campion was arrested and taken to the Tower.

There he was tortured and questioned -

a process in which Queen Elizabeth herself took part -

but he would not renounce his faith.

The only possible outcome was his execution or, if you prefer it, his martyrdom.

Intrigued by this sophisticated musical expression of despair and anger,

I went to King's College, London,

to consult David Trendell,

an authority on the stylistic interpretation and performance practice of English church music.

It's quite sober, quite melancholic.

Absolutely, yes.

It very much reflects the almost helpless note

of the text, "Why do I use...?" "Why do I bother...using my paper, ink and pen

"and call my wits to counsel..."

It reflects that.

This very melancholic, slow-moving idea...

HE PLAYS PIANO

# Why do I use...? #

That circular theme, coming back...

And then you have this falling figure, melancholic figure...

HE SINGS It's pre-echoed in the instrumental part.

# And call my wits to counsel... #

That's lovely.

It's beautiful.

When it gets to the word, "an angel's trump" - trumpet -

you get almost a fanfare type of figure in the top voice.

# An angel's trump... #

The really interesting thing is at the end.

It's very dissonant.

We have this note suspended over in one of the middle voices.

If I just play the last little bit.

# ..earth were found... #

I love that.

Which you don't find anywhere else and very rarely in anybody else's music.

-But Byrd is very expressive.

-He uses it as an emotional tool.

-Yes.

It shouldn't work, but it does. Beautiful.

HE PLAYS PIANO

"The Tower sayeth the truth he did defend

"The Bar bears witness of his guiltless mind

"Tyburn doth tell he made a patient end

"On every gate his martyrdom we find."

Clearly whatever public acknowledgement of Protestant faith was required

by his being a member of the Chapel Royal concealed some deep and intensely private beliefs

that he was determined to explore.

In 1593, the plague swept through London, claiming 10,000 lives

in six months.

Byrd and his wife left the city and came to the village of Stondon Massey in Essex.

Close to the Peter family and close enough to London that Byrd could keep up his association

with the Chapel Royal.

It was here that he was to spend the last 30 years of his life.

He took out a very long lease on this property. This is not the original building,

which was demolished in the early 18C to be replaced by a house that burned down in the 1880s.

This building is late Victorian.

Byrd quickly became entangled in a number of legal disputes with his neighbours,

particularly with Mrs Shelley,

who claimed the freehold of his house and with whom he conducted a 20-year feud.

She accuses him of vile and bitter words

and insisted he claimed that if he could not hold onto the property by right,

he would hold onto it my might.

Perhaps one of the reasons he fought so hard to retain the house

was that it was ideal for a secretive Roman Catholic.

We know that at this time there was a concealed footpath that led over the fields to nearby Kelvedon,

a notorious centre for recusancy.

We know this because inevitably there was a legal dispute over it.

Shaded by the woodland,

it would have made a clandestine route for Byrd and his family to visit

their Catholic friends there, safe from the eyes of prying Anglican neighbours.

This was an age of coded messages, of hidden secret meanings.

When the Italian composer Philip Demonte, who was working for the King of Spain,

sent Byrd his arrangement of Psalm 136,

By The Waters Of Babylon,

it might have been seen as merely one composer asking his revered English colleague

to admire the exquisite eight-part writing.

# Super flumina

# Babylonis illic

# Sedimus et flevimus... #

And exquisite it certainly is.

Byrd felt compelled to reply with his own version of the psalm,

although he started it with different words,

"How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?"

OVERLAPPING VOICES # Quomodo cantabimus... #

And so here it seemed were two composers innocently sharing their delight in setting biblical texts,

but De Monte was a Catholic safe in a country that still owed allegiance to the Pope.

Byrd had to hide his Catholicism

in a country that had exiled itself from the Church in Rome.

So their exchange had a deeper political significance.

And Byrd was to add a touch of defiance to his setting of the psalm.

He would not forget Rome.

"If I forget thee, let my right hand forget her cunning.

"If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth."

When James I of England and VI of Scotland

succeeded Elizabeth, he ramped up the penalties against Catholics.

His Act for the Better Discovering and Repressing of Popish Recusants

contained measures for the seizure of land

and imposed restrictions on where Catholics might live

and their freedom to travel more than five miles from home.

Byrd's response to this was to continue his project for secret Catholic music.

He compiled a collection of 109 compositions which became known as the Gradualia -

music for the whole cycle of the Church's year

including Feast days and Saints' days.

Glorious music but on an almost domestic scale.

# Animae in manu Dei sunt

# Et non tanget illos... #

"In the words themselves as I've learnt from experience

"there is such hidden and mysterious power

"that to a person thinking over divine things

"diligently and earnestly turning them over in his mind, the most appropriate measures come -

"I don't know how."

Byrd was very explicit that he liked to read the words and contemplate them before setting them to music.

You can tell listening to Justorum Animae

that he's read that he's read that text

and thought about it so carefully before get going

and he's held himself back because he wants the words to come through with maximum impact.

Byrd is expressing his own personal views at time when it was dangerous to do so

and writing for people who shared his view

and who wanted to use the Catholic words as a way of registering their protest and their belief.

# Illi autem sunt... #

But when he gets to the end about "The souls of the departed shall be in peace,"

he allows himself a much more luxuriant kind of music

and the reason he's done that, I'm sure, is he wants, through the music not just the word setting

but the actual musical flow to mimic the idea of peace as in the text.

It's like ripples going along.

It's got a calming effect.

SONG CONCLUDES

Time and time again, Byrd his wife, children and servants

were all summoned before the courts for failing to attend services here at Stondon Massey Parish Church.

Over the years, the family must have paid out many hundreds of pounds in fines - a fortune at the time.

But Byrd remained resolute in the old faith.

This is a small vestry.

Ah, here's William Byrd's will -

the way he asked to be buried here near his wife.

Which is sort of ironic, isn't it, considering he didn't come to church that often -

spent most of his time trying to avoid it.

I find this quite a sad signature, really.

A determined old man...82.

We see strokes in the lower part of the letters that are extremely thick and long.

To me, these represent the strength of Byrd's feeling

but he's an old man and you can see in the falling line of this signature

in comparison with the straight lines of the will itself.

How he was being dragged down and you feel that he's still determined,

he's still persistent.

But how much longer can he go on fighting.

Byrd died in the summer of 1623. The cause of death is not recorded.

In accordance with his wishes, he was buried here - in Stondon churchyard.

There's no sign of William or indeed, any of the Byrd family.

The oldest headstones seem to be about 17th Century

but then time and lichen have eroded so many of the inscriptions

and perhaps William had no headstone at all.

At this time, Catholic burial in consecrated ground was only just tolerated.

Most Catholic funerals took place at dusk -

an excuse for candles perhaps,

but this was still forbidden ritual.

THEY SING # Libera... #

MORE VOICES JOIN IN

Byrd's attitude to his chosen texts was uncompromising.

Holy words in which were sung the praises of God

deserve nothing less than a heavenly harmony to the extent we can attain it.

Time and time again, he stresses that his mission is to adorn divine things

with the highest art of which he's capable.

CHOIR SING

THEY HARMONIZE # Libera

# Me domine... #