St. Bart's 2016 Summer Festival Continues with William Byrd's MASS FOR FOUR VOICES, 7/10

The 22nd annual Summer Festival continues on Sunday, July 10, at 11 am with a performance of William Byrd's Mass for Four Voices.

The music of William Byrd (1543-1623) represents the pinnacle of polyphonic composition in the English Renaissance. Although a Catholic, Byrd was the Gentleman of the Chapel Royal (Director of Music) during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, a Protestant. As such, he composed Anglican sacred works for the services of Matins, Communion and Evensong held in the chapel on Sundays and Feast Days.

By 1570, Byrd became more intimately involved with Catholicism, while still in the employ of the Protestant monarch. He attended Catholic masses at the estate of his patron, Sir John Petre. This was dangerously risky, since attendance at such gatherings was considered sedition and punishable by execution. It was for these clandestine gatherings that Byrd embarked on an ambitious program to provide a cycle of liturgical music intended for the principal feasts of the Catholic Church calendar. The first stage in this undertaking was a series of three unaccompanied Latin masses for 3, 4 and 5 voices published between 1592 and 1595.

In contrast to his festive Anglican works for the Chapel Royal, these masses are deeply impassioned with a inner sense of yearning and devotion, perhaps influenced by the precarious circumstances for which they were composed.

St. Bartholomew's Choir will be conducted by William K. Trafka.