Stondon Singers: William Byrd 400th Anniversary Concert: Tuesday 4 July 2023

The Stondon Singers are promoting their special concert at St Peter & St Paul Church, Stondon Massey.

Here are further details about July's William Byrd 400th Anniversary Concert. The programme comprises works on the theme of Patronage and Persecution, both of which Byrd experienced in his lifetime. Pieces include his uplifting 'Haec Dies' and 'Sing Joyfully', in sharp contrast with 'Miserere Mei' and 'Tristitia et Anxietas'. The programme also includes works by Gibbons, Parsons, Tallis and Weir, among others.

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William Byrd Festival 2023 at Stondon Massey Church

 

William Byrd Anniversary Concert 2012

Byrd's popularity is clearly undiminished considering the near capacity audience who came to the Stondon Singers concert last evening. The 'William Byrd Anniversary Concert' is something of a fixture for the Choir and St Peter & St Paul Church, thought to be the 43rd occasion the event was held (with the next already programmed for Tuesday 2 July 2013).


This was a programme very much in two parts.  The first included a performance of the 'Five Part Mass' (excluding the Credo) framed first and last by a piece from Byrd's great Gradualia cycle ('Gaudaemus omnes in Domino' (1605) opened; 'Laudate Dominum' (1607) closed). The programme was interspersed by three short pieces by contemporaries of Byrd: Robert White, John Mundy and Robert Parsons (the latter two members of the Chapel Royal).  An organ solo, Byrd's 'Pavan The Earl of Salisbury and Galliard' illustrated to many present Byrd's talent as a keyboard composer.  (We hear very little Byrd performed locally on instruments.)  This was played by Christopher Tinker, the Choir's conductor.

After a long interval so that all could have drinks and nibbles, the second half began with a royal tribute with 'Pastyme with good companye' (Henry VIII); 'O Lord, make thy servant Elizabeth' (Byrd) and 'All Creatures Now' (Bennet).  A reading, four Italian madrigals and a 20th century piece by Kodaly concluded the programme with a song about stealing chickens!

Byrd died on 4 July 1623.  

William Byrd Anniversary Concert

Stondon Singers' William Byrd Anniversary Concert at Stondon Massey

Stondon Singers: 1611 and all that

Although not entitled '1611 and all that', the William Byrd Anniversary Concert at St Peter and St Paul Church explored within the wide-ranging tribute three associations with the year 1611.  Tomas Luis de Victoria, who died in 1611, was represented in the first half by the 'Missa Vidi Speciosam'.  In the second, the 400th anniversary of the Authorised Version of the Bible was celebrated in Michael Aves' 'A Vision of the Word' which drew from the book of Revelation centered on the text in Chapter 1: "Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of prophesy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand". Byrd's own music was represented by the songs 'This Sweet and Merry Month' and 'Though Amaryllis dance in green', the former re-published in a collection of 1611; 'Sing Joyfully', the anthem which started the concert; and, three versions of 'Ave Maria'  as representative of his sacred Latin output. At the back of the church the sound was most wonderful and our church representative at the end bid them thanks for the concert and their support of the recent William Byrd Festival, adding "same place, same time, next year".  Hear, hear!