Byrd Celebration: Pomerium

Byrd’s choral music reveals a series of compositional phases, though not ones as differentiated as those we associate with Du Fay or Stravinsky. Many of his early sacred works are based on Gregorian chant. As a young composer Byrd also liked to display his technical prowess in challenging canons such as we hear in the third stanza of the hymn O lux beata Trinitas. Byrd’s middle and late periods both focus on extending phrases through contrapuntal...