William Byrd was composing during a time when all of England was converted to Anglicanism. This meant that the use of Latin was not permitted in religion. Therefore the fact that Byrd uses Latin in many of his pieces, like this one, was highly dangerous. Byrd composed for Catholic services, usually in Latin.
The title of this piece means 'Hail the true one/person'- i.e. Christ. This shows that the piece is Sacred.
The bar lines in the piece are not in the notes, but in the lyrics. This shows that a greater emphasis was placed on the words and meaning of the piece than the notes themselves. The fact that the piece is syllabic emphasises the meaning of the words, because the words can be heard clearly, rather than having the melody being the only thing that is decipherable. The homophony of the piece also adds to this.
The piece would have been sung when the bread and wine were held up. The fact that Byrd was a Catholic meant that he believed in the bread at mass being the 'True Body' of Christ, which the prominent Anglicans would not have thought, hence in the piece, in bars 2 and 3, the word 'verum' is given emphasis because Byrd uses a false relation with the Superius and Bassus parts (F# and F natural).
In Bars 31-33, there are big-interval jumps in the Superius and Medius parts (5th's) as the text is referring to Jesus. These fifths hearken back to the Medieval period, when fifths were predominant in religious music. The use of the big intervals also emphasises this part of the piece, drawing attention to Jesus.
Help from:
http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/images/b/bb/Byrd-ave_verum_corpus.pdf
http://musicologicus.blogspot.co.uk/2007/07/william-byrd-ave-verum-corpus.html
http://a2ocr.edublogs.org/files/2009/05/Byrds-Mass-for-Four-Voices-Notes.pdf
No comments:
Post a Comment