In 1559, Queen Elizabeth I of England issued a set of solemn Injunctions to strengthen the nation's Oath of Supremacy and its worship by the Book of Common Prayer. They provide a vital clue to Anglican performance practice by specifying that the services should contain a hymn or song of praise to God, "in the best sort of music that may be conveniently devised." This phrase firmly ensconced choral music within the English church service and it helped establish the genre that would later be known as the anthem. A generation of English composers such as Thomas Tallis and William Byrd served the Protestant cause with that "best sort of music," adapting the techniques of the Continental Renaissance (though both also continued to write music for the Catholics as well). Byrd's anthem for six voices, Sing Joyfully unto God Our Strength, proved to be one of the most popular and durable anthems of the Elizabethan age: though no sixteenth century sources survive, Sing Joyfully appears in roughly 100 prints and manuscript copies that span the following century. The jubilant anthem has fully retained its currency within Anglican worship today. Byrd's Sing Joyfully presents four verses of Psalm 81 (Geneva Bible) in flawless counterpoint and nearly madrigalian text setting. He clothes each incise of text in subtly different vestments. The opening "Sing joyfully" arrives with a series of upward leaps sung by the two treble voices, alto, and tenor. Byrd reserves the full six-voiced texture for sonorous homophony at the text "Sing loud unto the God of Jacob." Syncopation may evoke dancing in the following verse, which calls for the music of timbrels, and "the pleasant harp" is sung to a closely imitated strumming motive. When the text commands the blowing of trumpets, Byrd writes a brilliant series of chordal fanfares that shimmer between antiphonal groups of voices. The music for "and at our feast day" is once again redolent of instrumental consort music and reaches a general pause. For the very last fragment of text, which pronounces God's "law" for the celebration of festivals, Byrd crafts the most extended counterpoint of the piece, prolonging and prolonging again the final cadential approach. The repetitive final harmonies reiterate the splendid praise due the God of Jacob, and bring it to life in music.

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