Mass for 5 Voices

Under Queen Elizabeth I, the central act of worship in Catholic services, the Mass, was forbidden under severe penalty. Yet committed Catholic families still found ways to hold services—in secret and always in fear. This was the world into which William Byrd’s three masses were born, and in their intimate, dark, and sometimes mystical style they capture the deprivation, sorrow, and religious intensity of these clandestine meetings. The Mass for Five Voices was probably the last of Byrd’s three settings to be published—sometime between 1592 and 1595. The opening “Kyrie” is brief, becoming less decorative (melismatic) and more conversational as it proceeds, infusing the music with a strong sense of urgency. Byrd linked all the movements of the Mass together by using a similar opening idea. In the “Gloria,” a trio of voices is entrusted with this melodic motif before the entry of the full five-voice choir. Throughout, Byrd carefully alternates the number of voices he uses, giving the work a chamber-like intimacy and intricacy. Overall, Byrd prioritizes directness of communication over opulence, and his style is notably more compact and less florid than the masses of his European contemporaries. But, as in his other mass settings, he saves his fire for the final “Agnus Dei,” which movingly grows from three, to four, then finally five voices, echoing music heard earlier and setting the crucial words “Dona nobis pacem” (“grant us peace”) to optimistic new music.