Back William Byrd Afrikaans ويليام بيرد Arabic ويليام بيرد (ملحن) ARZ William Byrd Catalan William Byrd Czech William Byrd Welsh William Byrd Danish William Byrd German Ουίλιαμ Μπερντ Greek William Byrd English
William Byrd (born probably 1539 or 1540; died Stondon Massey, 4 July 1623) was an English composer. He wrote music of all types that were popular then: keyboard music for virginals and for the organ, vocal music, especially choral music, both for the church (“sacred”) as well as non-sacred (“secular”).
Byrd lived in a time of great changes. Henry VIII had broken away from the Roman Catholic church and had founded the Anglican Church. The monarch (king or queen) was the Head of the Church of England. During Byrd’s lifetime the monarchs who reigned had different ideas about what church music should be like. Byrd was always a Catholic. This sometimes made life difficult for him, but he was always faithful to the monarchy, and he had a lot of tact in dealing with people.
Byrd grew up in the Renaissance period. He lived into the 17th century which is the period known in music as the Baroque period.