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, 30 April 2023

The Order of Service for the Coronation of King Charles III: Saturday 6 May 2023



'Prevent Us O Lord' and the 'Gloria' for the Mass for Four Voices by William Byrd feature in The Authorised Liturgy For The Coronation Rite of His Majesty King Charles III at Westminster Abbey on Saturday 6 May 2023.  Link here:  23-24132 Coronation Liturgy.pdf (churchofengland.org)

Here there is great significance in the performance of Byrd's once illegal Catholic and Latin liturgy composed in 1592. 

The 'Gloria' will be sung in Latin which, traditionally according to the 'Thirty-Nine Articles' of religion in the Church of England, is "a thing plainly repugnant ... in a tongue not understanded of the people". 

We need only to look back to the Coronation of Her Majesty The Queen, Elizabeth II, in 1953 to find that Ralph Vaughan Williams setting of The Mass in G Minor, composed in the 1920s and probably the first Latin Mass after Byrd, was reset in the English language. 

In the twenty-first century Byrd's music is far more 'acceptable' than it was when the Tercentenary Events were celebrated a hundred years ago.

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