One outstanding feature in William Byrd's career sets him apart from his contemporaries Orlande de Lassus, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, and Tomás Luis de Victoria: his instrumental music. The other three men with whom he is often compared, between them, left neither music for keyboard nor for instrumental ensemble, but Byrd made important and varied contributions to the development of both genres. His keyboard music largely consists of artful and imaginative sets of variations upon the well-known ground bass patterns and dance melodies of his time, and much of it survives in two large manuscript collections of "virginal" music. Both the aristocratic connections of the manuscripts, and the subtitles added to numerous pieces, reflect the milieu of the courtly amateur for which he was often writing. In the case of the volta subtitled "Lady Morley, either Byrd—or the manuscript's copyist—was making an association between the music and a specific figure at court. One Edward Parker became the 12th Lord Morley in 1577, and had two wives, though history cannot prove which of them was honored by the great Byrd here in this piece.

The volta (La volta) was a type of dance known both in England and France. It derives its name from the characteristic "turn" in its choreography and was the only Elizabethan dance performed with the couple's bodies closely touching each other. The triple-meter volta consists of a series of phrases, each of which culminates in an energetic spin by the couple as the man gives the woman a ride upon his thigh. Byrd, in the "Lady Morley" volta, sets a tune well-known to his courtly audience and proceeds to vary both its texture and melody. The first variations take place within the exposition of the basic melody: upon the repeat of each phrase, the composer inserts a subtle set of ornamental extra notes, which add a new veneer of elegance. Upon the advent of the second time through the dance, Byrd begins inserting ever-greater ornamental passages, such that the listener's attention constantly flies between one voice and another, to follow the fresh melodies that frequently even echo one another. He saves the most elaborate ornamentation for the conclusion, though: the final "reprise" of the second phrase doubles the pace of ornamentation, allowing both lower and upper voices the opportunity to take flight—even as the woman's body in the dance is emulated here in miniature.

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