In one of his great labors, the seventeenth-century English composer William Byrd set mass cycles for most of the church year. The motets resulting were collected and printed in the 1607 collection Gradualia and form a significant portion of Byrd's motet output. Many of these motets used Latin hymns, or set readings of the day, or other text sources. For the introit of his mass cycle for the Feast of the Ascension, Byrd set the hymn Viri Galilaei V.Omnes gentes plaudite. Gloria Patri. Viri Galilaei.

In an unconventional move confined to this mass and his Whitsun mass, Byrd does not open these motets with polyphony. Viri Galilaei, for example, opens with homophonic ostinato patterns. For all its unconventionality, however, it works well as an opening, and establishes an orderly feel which is retained throughout the piece. Regular rhythms and phrases work to create a sense of unity and structure in this much-underperformed work.



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