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William Byrd Influences

Decent Essays

If you were asked to name an influential person in history, who would you immediately think of? Most likely, the person is or was a politician, businessman, writer, etc. You most likely did not think of a musician. We, as a society, under appreciate the work of great musicians of our time as well as past times. For example, William Byrd was an extremely influential musician who lived from 1538-1623. He is responsible for choir pieces consisting of four (or more) voice parts. Throughout his lifetime, he made many uncertain opportunities. William Byrd beneficially impacted his society through the risks he took in his music.
In order to understand someone’s accomplishments and later life, one must first examine their childhood and years growing …show more content…

William wrote over 120 pieces, including sonnets, madrigals, and other secular works (William). William is “best known for his development of the English madrigal.”(Britannica) A madrigal is a choral piece for two to four people. In his song, “Ave Verum Corpus”, we can clearly hear this use of many choral voices. In fact, this effect can be found in a almost all of William’s works. He took large risks by using two, three, four, or even more voices to blend perfect harmonies and use alternating melodies. The result is beautiful music that would be used, even today, by countless others. On aspect of his music is the joining of high and low voices. There are areas in his music where the low voices sing but the high voices do not and vice versa. Then, William does a splendid job of blending them together, using the differing pitches of the singers to compliment each others voices. The result is a full sound that is not too muddy and low, yet not too high and pitchy. His songs were almost always in Latin wording, including the constant use of the phrase “Agnus Dei” or “Lamb of God”. If listening very closely, one might be able to hear this phrase repeated in many of the works provided by William. Byrd also released a collection of madrigals that became very popular (William).William also jumped for any opportunity he could get his hands on; for example, William majorly contributed in the making of the English

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