An interesting but minor composer, Robert Parsons was organist at the Chapel Royal from 1563 until his early death in 1570, whereupon Byrd stepped in to take his place. Parsons' inventive, highly original music seems to have had a strong influence on Byrd's work, most notably on his work for organ, but the influence acted on his vocal music as well. The basic pattern and material of this piece, a responds for the Office of the Dead, is in fact borrowed from a setting of the same responds by Parsons. Parsons has the historical distinction of being the first English composer ever to compose music for the Office of the Dead, and his Libera me domine is a brilliant piece in its own right. Knowing where the treasure lay, Byrd shamelessly plunders the earlier work, then, being the better composer, proceeds to improve it, enriching the harmony, and using a more careful, varied handling of imitative entry-points.



Like Parsons, Byrd buries the source plainchant within the music, disguising its entry, and muddling our perception of it by using imitative material that is similar to its opening phrase. The plainchant doesn't actually enter until a few measures in, when the first 3 voices are well on their way, only the bass comes in afterwards. The emotionally neutral quality of the main motifs and the very consonant harmonies in both composers' pieces give them a rather smooth, continuous feel, in keeping with the gossamer rhythm and mellow, no-frills eloquence of chant. In the end it doesn't matter that the source chant is hidden, for its influence is felt in almost every detail. But, in Byrd's improved version he writes in a fuller, but still muted climax. It is achieved by a sudden shift into more assertive, dissonant harmonies on the line "Quando coeli…" Instead of going to the height of melodrama however, he draws back from the high point as patiently as he arrived there. The urgent power of this piece comes on slow and gentle, it leaves much the same way.

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