Born around 1540 at Lincoln, Byrd studied music in his youth with the great Thomas Tallis, with whom he shared the position of organist at the Chapel Royal. Probably the most intellectual and varied of all of the British Renaissance composers, Byrd wrote not only Latin but also English language religious works as well as madrigals and a significant amount of great keyboard music. Today’s motet, "Miserere mei, Deus," from Cantiones Sacrae (1589) is scored for 5 voices (SATTB), and is almost hypnotic in its austere, seamless beauty.  It is as much a private devotion as a plea for mercy.

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