Although published in the 1589 volume of Cantiones sacrae, much of the music contained in William Byrd's well-known five-voice motet In resurrectione tua Domine is actually drawn from another motet he composed during a much earlier period (and which is also published in the same volume of Cantiones sacrae). And so In resurrectione tua Domine is a remarkably unique blend of old and new, and we see the hand of a mature composer putting polish and refinement on the music of his own youth in much the same way that Johannes Brahms would do some three hundred years later with his own B major Piano Trio. The motet has always been something of a popular favorite (in the sadly limited way that music of this period appealed to audience tastes throughout previous generations), and today it holds a place as one of the most rightly-beloved of Byrd's works. Both the text and music of In resurrectione are relatively brief (probably one of the reasons for its popularity), outlining four sections-the actual In resurrectione portion, the balancing laetentur coeli, and two alleluias, one very short and stuck between the two major bits, the other, concluding one much longer. The entire motet lasts just seventeen breves. After a restrained opening gesture, Byrd expands his melody to the astonishing range of a perfect eleventh! The first alleluia takes as its root the motive originally designed for the word "resurrectione", expanding the gesture to outline a fifth rather than a fourth. A three-note "exultet" motive shines brightly as it is distributed throughout the voices; its characteristic initial rest calls attention to this important word. The final alleluia, which is both rhythmically quicker and a good deal more florid than the music that precedes it, is set in a half-canonic, half-cantus firmus manner.



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