A good portion of the second book of William Byrd's massive Gradualia collection, published in 1607, is devoted to a large eight-piece setting in four voices of the Mass Proper for Christmas. Like all the Gradualia motets, the Christmas Mass music was probably intended to be sung at private Catholic ceremonies (in the house of Sir John Petre near Byrd's home in Stondon Massey), and an intimate texture well-suited to its chamber-music purpose informs much of the work. The final piece of the bunch is a setting of the O magnum misterium (O Great Mystery) text for soprano, alto, tenor and bass (most of the rest of the Mass is written for two sopranos rather than a soprano and an alto); although Byrd's setting is by no means the most famous of its kind, the conciseness and expressive efficiency with which he deploys his material is of the utmost interest, as is the simple fact no other pieces of this kind (namely the Matins respond) are to be found anywhere in the Gradualia. O magnum misterium is actually made up of several parts: first the actual O magnum misterium text and then the Beata Virgo respond, verse Ave Maria, and Beata Virgo once again (as often as not, though, one will hear the O magnum misterium portion performed alone, as the Beata Virgo group is separate enough from the opening segment to allow them to be accepted as individual pieces). The clearly-drawn harmonic scheme of the O magnum misterium section is very forward-looking indeed: Byrd makes almost exclusive use of the tonic, subdominant and dominant levels (in the modern lingo), with a turn to VI (B flat) in the second half. Beata Virgo is, if rather brief by comparison with the foregoing section, of no less compositional dexterity. It is compact but not fragmented the way that some of Byrd's shorter works can be-instead, and the same applies to the three-voice Ave Maria that appears between statements of Beata Virgo, Byrd a kind of commentary-in-miniature of the sweeping lyricism that marks the O magnum misterium with such individuality.



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