| Liturgy and Contemplation in Byrd's Gradualia Contributor(s): McCarthy, Kerry (Author) |
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ISBN: 0415978610 ISBN-13: 9780415978613 Publisher: Routledge OUR PRICE: $180.50 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: January 2007 Annotation: William Byrds Gradualia, a set of liturgical music published in 1605 and 1607, is one of the most important compositions of the English Renaissance. Byrd composed this collection based on the Roman Catholic liturgy at a time when this religion was illegal in England, and the performance of its liturgy was punishable by fines, imprisonment, or even death. Not only was it surprising that the normally politically careful Byrd chose to create a liturgical work, but it also went against his usual practice of taking a free approach to text setting changing words or inserting additional text as he saw fit to suit his music. The Mass cannot be changed; and much of its text is not very inspiring. The challenge, then, to the composer was to find musical inspiration in a text that must be rigidly followed. The resulting work is one of the most unusualand often misunderstoodcollections in the English repertoire Kerry McCarthy has undertaken to study how Byrd approached this task, its meaning both musically and philosophically/religiously. Combining both the cultural history of the dangers faced by Catholics who practiced their religion at this time with a very close reading of how Byrd created this work, McCarthy creates a book that will interest musicologists, religious historians, and students of Elizabethan English culture. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Music |
| Dewey: 264 |
| LCCN: 2006031358 |
| Physical Information: 0.73" H x 6.29" W x 9.21" (1.03 lbs) 239 pages |
| Themes: - Religious Orientation - Christian |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: William Byrd's Gradualia is one of the most unusual and elaborate musical works of the English Renaissance. This large collection of liturgical music, 109 pieces in all, was written for clandestine use by English Catholics at a time when they were forbidden to practice their religion in public. When Byrd began to compose the Gradualia, he turned from the penitential and polemical extravagances of his earlier Latin motets to the narrow, carefully ordered world of the Counter-Reformation liturgy. It was in this new context, cut off from his familiar practice of choosing colorful texts and setting them at length, that he first wrote about the "hidden and mysterious power" of sacred words to evoke a creative response. Liturgy and Contemplation in Byrd's Gradualia responds to Byrd's own testimony by exploring how he read the texts of the Mass and the events of the church calendar. Kerry McCarthy examines early modern English Catholic attitudes toward liturgical practice, meditation, and what the composer himself called "thinking over divine things." She draws on a wide range of contemporary sources - devotional treatises, commentaries on the Mass, poetry, memoirs, letters, and Byrd's dedicatory prefaces - and revisits the Gradualia in light of this evidence. The book offers a case study of how one artist reimagined the creative process in the final decades of his life. |