William Byrd (1543 - 1623)
Consort and Keyboard Music, Songs and Anthems

William Byrd is one of that select body of composers who was recognised as a genius, and an influential one, during his own lifetime. His contemporaries referred to him as 'a Father of Musick' and 'our Phoenix', perhaps alluding to his rôle in bringing Elizabethan music to a peak of perfection, particularly in terms of his understanding of the way continental polyphony could be used for effective expressive ends. Having learned through the influence of his older colleague Thomas Tallis, and the example of foreigners such as Alfonso Ferrabosco, whose music was much copied and eventually published in England, Byrd developed his distinctive musical language into one capable of infinite variety of mood and character.

The outline of Byrd's early career is not well documented, but he must have been born in 1543, possibly in London where he may have been taught by Tallis. At the ag