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Songs of Sundrie Natures (1589).

Article Excerpt
William Byrd. Songs of Sundrie Natures (1589). Edited by David Mateer. London: Stainer & Bell, c2004. (The Byrd Edition, 13.) [Gen. pref. (Philip Brett), p. v.; pref., p. vi-xvi; editorial notes, p. xvii-xviii; texts, p. xix-xxxi; notes on the poems, p. xxxii-xxxiii; facsims., p. xxxiv-xxxvii; score, p. 1-270; extant copies, p. 271-72; index of first lines, p. 273-74. ISMN M-2202-2044-9; ISBN 0-85249-375-4; pub. no. B375. [pounds sterling]69.]

This volume, the twentieth and last to appear in the new Byrd Edition, completes one of the most ambitious single-composer editorial projects in recent history. William Byrd himself produced the 1589 Songs of Sundrie Natures during an unusually fruitful publishing drive of four full-length compilations in as many years: Psalmes, Sonets, and Songs (London: Thomas East, 1588); Latin books 1-2 of the Latin Cantiones sacrae (London: East, 1589, 1591); a large manuscript anthology of keyboard music (My Ladye Nevells Booke, 1591); and two printed settings for four and six voices of "This Sweet and Merry Month of May" (for Thomas Watson's First Sett of Italian Madrigalls Englished [London: East, 1590]), which more or less single-handedly launched the Elizabethan madrigal craze. This second songbook may be compared to Byrd's second book of Cantiones sacrae: as its name suggests, it is a more eclectic and less unified volume than its predecessor. The music varies widely in scoring, style, and mood. Byrd explains in his preface to the reader (reproduced on p. xxxvii) that he is "desirous to delight thee with varietie, whereof (in my opinion) no Science is more plentifully adorned then Musicke," and he offers the book as a musical smorgasbord "to serve for all companies and voyces." The composer's note ad lectorem, as so often, is a glimpse of personal warmth after the slightly tense flattery of the dedication proper. Here he signs himself "The most affectionate freend to all that love or learne Musick"; he seems far removed from the...

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