Catalogue # CHAN0789

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Musica Contexta translates literally as ‘music interwoven’,\nreflecting the group’s primary aim of presenting Renaissance music\nin the context of its original conception and function. They are\njoined on this recording by The English Cornett and Sackbut\nEnsemble and the harpsichordist Steven Devine.

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The Great Service, consisting of settings of liturgical texts\nfor Matins, Communion, and Evensong, is among the finest music by\nWilliam Byrd for the Anglican Church. He wrote this grand-scale\nwork for two five-part choirs who, for added contrast, would sing\ntheir respective parts facing each other from either side of the\nchurch. The size of the choir was used not so much for volume or\ndeclamatory effect, as for an extraordinarily rich variety of vocal\ntextures and sonorities.

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As well as constantly changing the combination of voices, Byrd\nwas exceptionally inventive in countless other ways, for example by\nvarying the phrase lengths and rhythms, by throwing in unexpected\nharmonies, and by repeating lines in ever more elaborate ways. The\nendless variety with which Byrd played with the available\ncombinations gives the Great Service a kaleidoscopic character,\nwhich is very rare in late Renaissance music.

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The Great Service is a prime example of how the written music\nonly partially plots a Renaissance composer’s intentions for\ninterpreters of today. It is the nature of Renaissance music, as it\nwas written, deliberately to encourage different approaches. In the\nwords of Simon Ravens, the Music Director of Musica Contexta: ‘That\nwhich we might consider frustratingly vague, they thought of as an\nopen embrace of the broadest possible church of performers.’

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He continues: ‘And although our performance resonates with\nthoughts of the Chapel Royal, we have not attempted to tie this\nrecording, taken as a whole, to any particular occasion or place:\nthe evidence for us to reconstruct any such event simply does not\nexist.’ It has been suggested, however, that the whole work may\nhave been written for the fortieth anniversary in 1598 of Queen\nElizabeth’s accession.

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Byrd: The Great Service

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Steven Devine (organ)
\nThe English Cornett and Sackbut Ensemble & Musica Contexta

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