William Byrd (c.1540-1623) remains one of England’s most beloved composers, owing in part to his voluminous output of church music. A turbulent career, not helped by his strong Catholic faith in increasingly Protestant England, informed some extraordinarily expressive compositions. A small amount of music for the early Anglican liturgies has remained in constant use since its creation, but it is his music for the Latin rites (only rediscovered in the early twentieth century) that have secured his fame and reputation.

Byrd’s three Masses were printed without title page or date, and thus it proves rather difficult to pinpoint their place in his compositional chronology. Early scholarship placed them among the Gradualia publications of 1605 to 1611, based on the disposition of their time signatures. However, current thought places them in the mid 1590s (after the publications of 1588 to 1591), and an examination of the state of preservation of the printed sources places them in the order of four, three and five. The four-part Mass has long been thought to be the earliest of the three, and it draws on earlier material from John Taverner’s ‘The Mean Mass’, notably in the Sanctus.

Byrd’s Masses seem to have been the first in England to include integral settings of the Kyrie. Older composers either set no Kyrie at all or provided one separately, according to the requirements of the Sarum Rite. However, Byrd was composing for the revised Roman Missal of 1570, the Sarum Rite having been abolished altogether in England. Indeed, it has been noted that Byrd’s Masses, particularly the Sanctus and Benedictus, are of a perfect length for celebrations in the Tridentine Form of the Mass. Moreover, since they possess no formal connection with e.g. a specific motet basis, these Masses are suitable for use throughout the year, as Byrd no doubt intended.