After achieving a rather restrained musical tone in Book 1 of his Gradualia collection, English composer William Byrd threw open the gates to a more dramatic kind of text/music relationship and, by and large, a more vibrant compositional style for the various Mass Propers contained in Book 2. The Gradualia contains some 110 Latin motets that Byrd combines to form music for the various feasts and celebrations that occur throughout the Catholic year; of all the Masses contained within this massive compilation, the Easter music is widely felt to be the most important-in style, content, and execution it stands with the very best music that William Byrd ever created. Byrd provides five basic sections of music for the Easter Mass: an introit, gradual (and alleluia), sequence, offertory, and communion. Throughout the work Byrd flirts with harmonic and thematic procedures that are quite strikingly modern-circle of fifths motion abounds, and thematic/motivic substance is drawn with crystal clarity. The introit Resurrexi is itself cast in several sections, the main Resurrexi itself, the introit verse Domine probasti me, and the doxology Gloria Patri (the Resurrexi music is to be repeated after the doxology). The opening text of the introit, focusing on the word "resurrexi", is set to a florid, energetic imitation that effectively "paints" the "rising" involved (by means of upward arppeggiation). Something of this same spinning quality spills over into the verse Domine probasti me, an extract from Psalm 138, though here Byrd calls on just three voices. The fourth voice is again allowed to take part in the doxology, during which stronger hints of homophony than any yet heard peek through. The gradual Haec dies and the following alleluia are fused into a single large musical entity. The Haec dies text is drawn from Psalm 117, and each of the four lines of text is given its own small section of music. Byrd sets the opening line in a wholly canonic manner (with the voices in pairs, the fifth and central voice acting as a kind of fulcrum between them); although the canonic structure breaks down by the next line, the imitative interplay continues unabated. After the requisite florid "alleluia" passage, the alleluia verse Pascha nostrum immolatus est Christus is given in striking homophony. The text of the following Victimae paschali laudes is of great length, telling of the struggle between life and death and Christ's triumphant resurrection. Here Byrd employs a far more archaic-sounding style, purely in order to get the text out quickly. A striking duet is given in the third verse, while in the following passage the two sopranos are used to give Mary's answer to the question posed by the entire ensemble. The full ensemble is called back into action for the final triumphant verse. The following piece, Terra tremuit, is, by comparison, very short. After the purely Renaissance Victimae paschali laudes, this two-line offertory is amazingly modern-sounding, even using a striking repeated- semitone figure to draw attention to the important word "tremuit (trembled)"; here we see how closely allied some of Byrd's musical tactics were to the kind of madrigalisms and text-painting then flourishing in Italy. Pascha nostrum, the concluding communion, is almost equally forward-looking. After a single long, imitative phrase on the text "Pascha nostrum immolatus est Christus (Christ the paschal lamb is sacrificed)" a contrasting alleluia passage is inserted. In the second half the voices divide into two halves to give their respective thoughts on the text "sinceritatis et veritatis (bread of sincerity and truth)" before coming together to give the same text in glorious homophony.

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