William Byrd (redirected from Wyllyam Byrd)

Byrd, William 

Born circa 1543, possibly in Lincolnshire; died July 4, 1623, in Stondon-Massey, Essex. English composer, founder of the national madrigal school and representative of the virginalist school of musicians; organist and music publisher.

Byrd was a master of Catholic and Anglican choral music, including psalms and graduals, and of secular music—madrigals, motets, fantasies, variations for the virginal, chamber music for strings, and songs—in which he made extensive use of popular melodies. Features typical of Renaissance music—the cult of beauty and pleasure and the rejection of medieval asceticism—appeared in secular music, where they were artistically embodied in a wealth of melody and harmony, in rhythmic variety, and in polyphonic richness. Byrd formulated his aesthetic principles in the foreword to his Psalms, Sonnets and Songs of Sadness and Piety (1588). He was noted for his prodigious output. About 140 compositions were published in 20 volumes in London between 1937 and 1950.

REFERENCE

Fellowes, E. H. William Byrd, 2nd ed., London, 1948.