Come and Sing Byrd's Great Service

Petros Singers are delighted to join forces with Toby Ward (co-founder and artistic director of Ensemble Pro Victoria) for a come-and-sing workshop exploring the rich world of William Byrd’s Great Service. Composed in the late 16th century, this pinnacle of Elizabethan music is noted for its immense scale and lavish, dramatic styling designed for the Chapel Royal. Written for ten-part double choir, the Great Service is an Anglican curio amidst the output of Byrd, himself a devoted Catholic. Partly, this is because Byrd never published the work: it remained undiscovered until 1922, when it was unearthed among a bundle of miscellaneous partbooks in Durham Cathedral Library. Musically, however, the Great Service differs so vastly in ambition and sophistication – not only from Byrd’s other Anglican liturgical settings, but also from his Catholic music – that scholars have speculated about its provenance ever since. Was it written as an elaborate resignation from the Chapel Royal benches? Was it an overzealous Anglican apology after Byrd had been implicated in a Catholic cover-up? Or was it a piece so close to Byrd’s heart that he could not bear to publish it?