motet notes - Byrd

William Byrd (1540-1623) was the most important British composer until Henry Purcell. A student of Thomas Tallis, he excelled in every kind of music practiced in his time, vocal or instrumental, sacred or secular. Composing very prolifically throughout his eighty-year lifetime, his music is of uneven quality, but at his best, it is of very high intellectual and emotional value.

Byrd’s motet for Christmas Day, "O magnum mysterium," was published 1607. The direct simplicity of this setting contemplates the ineffable mystery of Jesus’ birth with music stripped of all excess, all the while the joyful response to the nativity courses through his carol for Christmas Day. Its intricate imitative counterpoint seems to echo the entire company of heaven singing.

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