William Byrd

William Byrd (1543-1623) was England's foremost composer during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I.  

An undated etching of Byrd by Gerard Vandergucht 

He was born around 1540, possibly in Lincolnshire, into a musical family. His father, Thomas Byrd, was a gentleman of the Chapel Royal. One of his brothers, John, was also a musician.

A pupil of Thomas Tallis, Byrd served as organist and master of choristers at Lincoln Cathedral from 1563 to 1573 before moving to London to join the Chapel Royal.

He married Juliana Birley in 1568; they had seven children. One of their twins, Thomas, named after godfather Thomas Tallis, was the only child to follow Byrd into music.

He composed church music, madrigals, consort songs, and keyboard works—effectively writing for every medium available to him.

Byrd pioneered the English madrigal, elevated keyboard music, and produced some of the greatest sacred works of the era, including his famous three Latin masses.

Despite being born into a Protestant family and working as a court composer under Elizabeth I, Byrd openly associated with known Catholics, was cited for recusancy (refusing to attend Anglican church services), and risked persecution at a time when Catholicism was viewed with suspicion in England. However, he avoided harsher persecution thanks to his genius and royal connections.

Byrd’s close professional relationship with Tallis led to a royal publishing monopoly in 1575. After Tallis’s death in 1585, Byrd published four collections of his own music, including Psalms, Sonets, & Songs (1588); Songs of Sundrie Natures (1589); and two books of Cantiones sacrae (1589 and 1591). These sacred songs were written for private use by Roman Catholic friends.   

From the early 1590s, Byrd lived at Stondon Massey in Essex, where he owned Stondon Place and spent the last 30 years of his life.

He died there of heart failure on July 4, 1623. The Chapel Royal described him as "a Father of Musick."