Welcome to our Festival blog

We are a small congregation commemorating the 400th anniversary of the death of the village's Elizabethan composer, William Byrd (c.1540 - 1623).

We are planning to erect a permanent memorial to Byrd to mark the quatercentenary since his death, and have begun a fundraising appeal. Our events this year have included a talk on The Life and Times of William Byrd (30 June), including book release; a Commemorative Service of BCP Evensong (2 July); and, welcomed The Stondon Singers who gave a sell-out William Byrd Anniversary Concert on the actual day (4 July). Stondon Massey has also featured on BBC Radio 3's 'Composer of the Week' programme (3-7 July).

This website contains everything you need to know about William Byrd's life and music as well as his links with Stondon Massey. /

Sunday 1 May 2011

This Sweet And Merry Month of May

The madrigal ‘This Sweet and Merry Month of May’ is in a set of pieces published by Byrd in 1611 entitled ‘Psalms, Songs, and Sonnets: some solemne, others joyfull’. But as Edmund Fellowes observes in his book ‘The English Madrigal Composers’ (1948): “The inclusion in this volume of the four part setting … suggests that by no means all of these pieces had been newly composed at the date of publication; this particular madrigal had already been printed with Watson’s ‘First sett of Italian Madrigalls Englished’ as early as 1590”.

This demonstrates the importance of this work in Byrd’s complete output.

The Stondon Singers will be performing this piece on Saturday 7 May (4.00 & 7.30pm) in a programme entitled ‘William Byrd: His Essex Years’. It is also the chosen piece by BBC Essex today heralding the William Byrd Festival.

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