To Preserve the Health of Man (Byrd)
- Submitting institution
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Swansea University / Prifysgol Abertawe
- Unit of assessment
- 27 - English Language and Literature
- Output identifier
- 54054
- Type
- I - Performance
- Venue(s)
- Delayed
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month of first performance
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- Year of first performance
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- Yes
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- BBC Radio 3 recording scheduled March 29 2020. Postponed by Covid19. William Byrd (1543-1623) and his mentor Thomas Tallis are the great figures of English Renaissance music. Catholics at a perilous time, they both survived, protected by Queen Elizabeth. Byrd wrote openly for the Anglican Church whilst secretly composing small-scale masses sung in recusant Catholic households by three to five singers including, for the first time, female voices. They are now widely celebrated and sung by Catholic and non-Catholic choirs.
Little is known about Byrd’s personal life. It is even uncertain whether he was married once or twice. He was a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, and what survives are the chapel’s documents, court records (he was notoriously litigious), the royal archives of Elizabeth and James, and Byrd’s music. From extensive reading, Britton has synthesised earlier research and the often contradictory biographical references in musicology texts. His approach offers a creative in-filling of gaps in received knowledge.
Byrd spent his later life at Stondon Massey, Essex, writing his monumental Gradualia, the first musical setting of every feast day in the Church calendar. Britton’s text results from six months of meetings and discussions with the Chapel Royal’s Director of Music, Colm Carey. It comprises five duologues between Byrd and influential figures in his life: His wife (twice), Tallis, Elizabeth and Edmund Campion. Each is matched with music for one of the chosen feast days: Christmas, Easter, Ascension, Pentecost and Saints Peter and Paul. The music was pre-recorded just before lockdown at the Chapel Royal, in the Tower of London. The style of the text emerged from a series of experimental readings with Sir David Suchet, who will play Byrd in the production. The title “To Preserve the Health of Man” is from Byrd’s written defence of the value of public singing.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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