Et in unam

Et in unam sanctam

William Byrd's three masses (one each for three, four, and five voices) have provided me with hours of listening pleasure via recordings. That was not their intended use. It amazes, that even out of their context in the Mass, they do not behave like fish out of water. Their essential unity of style, and the movement through penitence, praise, proclamation, profound awe in the presence of the Holy, and the profound humility of God's gracious meeting with us where we are, as we are, all breathe through this music, mirroring the movement of the Mass.

In contrast to Palestrina's exquisite control of counterpoint, Byrd  pushes the counterpoint toward its limits, just a bit, and just enough. His works have an English sensibility;  Terry Waite, former special envoy of the Archbishop of Canterbury, used a term in reference to the ethos of the Anglican church, which, I think, describes the sound-world of Byrd's masses: "passionate coolness."

The bit that always grabs me is in the third movement, the Credo, near the end. Up until this point, the Credo moves along in Byrdian counterpoint, ends of phrases overlapping the beginnings of the next, the shapes of the phrases painting pictures with the words (an ascending-scale theme for "ascendit de coeli" for instance). Sometimes the Credos seem almost jaunty. 

And then, wham! Et in unam sanctam cathólicam et apostólicam Ecclésiam, set in block chords, huge vertical columns of sound, everyone singing the same words simultaneously, and from their guts. It is hair-raising. 

Byrd was a recusant, a Catholic in protestant 16th-century England. He was able to practice his faith and publish his music because the authorities chose to look the other way. The Protestant/Catholic thing in that time and place might be compared to the Sunni/Shiite divide in Iraq today. You can get away with being on the wrong side of the religious divide if a) you don't practice your faith openly, b) your name doesn't give you away, and c) your friends/enemies/associates either don't know or don't care enough to rat you out. The point is, remaining Catholic cost Byrd something. Sure, he was a respected composer, a successful business man (he and his Protestant partner Thomas Tallis had the royal monopoly to print music paper!). But we know that anytime you have to hide an essential aspect of your being, it costs you. 

"And in one holy, catholic, and apostolic church;" as Byrd sets it, it almost has the punch of the Shema sung by European Jews in the face of their Nazi captors.

Well, I suppose it's not life or death, but the long goodbye endured by the Anglican Communion, especially with this week's events in Jerusalem, causes me to join in singing, defiantly, hopefully, longingly, Et in unam sanctam cathólicam et apostólicam Ecclésiam.