Byrd, William

Wiki entry: William Byrd

International Music Score Library Project [IMSLP] entry: William Byrd

William Byrd [1539?1543?-1623] was the leading English Renaissance composer, and a prolific composer of vocal and instrumental music over his long career.

PieceMP3MidiGenre
Jhon Come Kisse Me Now MIDI   harpsichord   elizabethan   FWVB
This is a theme and fifteen short variations, composed around 1600, and of increasing brilliance until the last two, which are more restrained and stately. The theme is a traditional song, in which the wife sings
    Jhon come kisse me now, now, now,
      Jhon come kisse me now, now, now,
    Jhon come kisse me by and by,
      And make no more ado.
to which the husband replies with assorted `excuses' such as
    Wives are good and wives are bad,
      Wives can make their husbands mad,
      And so does my wife too.
The piece is taken from the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, a huge collection of keyboard pieces by assorted composers, and the only known source for many of its roughly 300 pieces, of which this is number 10.
Sequenced mostly in 1995, from the Dover edition.
The Carmans Whistle MIDI   harpsichord   elizabethan   FWVB
Another piece from the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book, see above, amd number 58 in that collection. A carman is what we would now call a carter, and it was supposedly their habit to whistle to keep the horse interested. This was a well-known tune of the period, commonly sung with many verses of a somewhat bawdy nature. There is a theme and nine variations.
Sequenced in 2022 from the Dover edition [1963] of the publication edited by J. A. Fuller Maitland and W. Barclay Squire, and published by Breitkopf and Hartel in 1899. There is no copyright notice.
I have the same piece in my copy of My Ladye Nevells Booke, which is a few years earlier and is very probably more reliable [as the copyist was thought to be very accurate and known to Byrd himself, as opposed to the smuggled manuscripts of the Fitzwilliam. There are a fair number of differences in the ornamentation, and a few in the actual notes, but I have stuck with the Fitzwilliam for consistency.
The original is marked in 12/4 time, but some bars are actually 6/4. To save lots of changes and to make the score easier to read, I've left it entirely in 6/4 in the MIDI version. The Nevell version is marked in 6/4 throughout.
Lavolta MIDI   harpsichord   elizabethan   FWVB
A volta is a dance similar to a polska, or polka. As it involved lifting the lady, it was thought somewhat scandalous. There are several variant spellings; the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book has La Volta, Musica Britannia has Lavolta, which I've used here as MB was my primary source.
Versions on the Web seem rather slow; I've taken it a little faster, but tried not to race.
Sequenced from the version in MB, volume XXVIII, the second of two volumes of Byrd's keyboard music, published for the RMA in London by Stainer and Bell in 1976, and transcribed and edited by Alan Brown. AB uses two sources, the FWVB and Will Forster's Virginal Book. AB regards WFVB as more reliable, so I have mostly followed MB where it differs from FWVB; I have occasionally used FWVB instead where it seemed more musical. Ornamentation is from MB.


Sequencing: Copyright © Andy Walker, 2020-22. You may use all my work freely for private purposes; commercial use is permitted only with my permission.

    Andy Walker, anw [at] cuboid4.me.uk [remove digit to construct address]