The Golden Renaissance: William Byrd

As a member of Elizabeth I’s Chapel Royal, William Byrd held a ringside seat as the English Reformation played out. Stile Antico’s programme marks the 400th anniversary of the composer’s death in 1623 with a survey mainly of his late music for the Latin liturgy, deeply personal pieces written in rural retirement that embody the unwavering faith of a devout Roman Catholic in a Protestant land. The conductorless (and flawless) vocal ensemble build their spellbinding programme around Byrd’s Mass for Four Voices, a towering monument of the English Renaissance created for clandestine country-house services and first published as an anonymous pamphlet. They frame it with motets for the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the sublime votive antiphon Tribue Domine, a backward glance at England’s lost Catholic past.