I have done this mass setting for the EF. For each invocation we employed the venerable practice of alternating chant and polyphony starting with the polyphony. We used the Kyrie from chant Mass VIII, although any Kyrie in the appropriate mode would work.

So we sang: Kyrie (Byrd) - K (chant) - K (Byrd) - Christe (chant) - C (Byrd) - C (chant); then, for the final set of Kyries, we repeated Byrd's first Kyrie, then sang the chant, finishing with Byrd's final Kyrie. By saving Byrd's final Kyrie setting for last, we avoided "finishing" the piece before the final repetition of the Kyrie.

Sam Schmitt

Some would argue that the mass is in the 6th mode - and there is only one Kyrie in that mode in the Graduale: the alternate Kyrie form Mass XVII. But we found that Kyrie from Mass VIII works well - it begins and ends of the "tonic" or "dominant" of the key of the mass, and everyone was already familiar with it.

Modal theory aside, in the end, Kyrie VIII just worked the best with the Byrd.

Sam Schmitt

I think the EF rubrics requires the choir to sing exactly what is written in the text of the Mass. Since it's a 9-fold Kyrie in the text, we have to sing it 9-fold. I could be wrong though.

So what was Byrd's practice, or is that irrelevant because he was guided by the Sarum rubrics?

Got it. Again, a naive question.

We've used it in a 6-fold way, by treating the soprano line as the cantor part, and filling in the other parts on the repeats.

Michael O'Connor,

I thought of doing it that way - simply repeating the polyphony three times each, with the modification for the last time - but it would simply be too repetitious, IMHO. The practice of alternating chant with polyphony is an old one and so we did it that way.

Sam Schmitt

RichE - We're looking into using a Benedictus (Canticle of Zechariah) that uses the alternating form. We'll be doing it for 3 weeks of Morning Prayer in Advent. It should prove interesting. At the moment our thought is to do it straight chant the first week and increasingly add the polyphonic variations the second and third.

Ok, scratch all this is above. I spoke to the world's foremost Byrd expert, Kerry McCarthy, about this. She said two things: first, there is no question that it was performed precisely as it is written, nothing taken away, nothing added. "Byrd knew how to write repeat signs." It was done this way in 16th century England. There is no question about this.

Second, there is nothing that requires that the schola repeat the Kyrie phrase twice or three times in polyphony settings. It was common to sing just one phrase and move on. The reason is that this is a repeated text and the demands that it be repeated as in the spoken parts DO NOT apply to polyphony.

I heard it done in the EF exactly this way this morning.

So vincewoo, there is your answer. Do it precisely as the music prescribes.

Thanks for this new info. Though I did like the 'idea' of alternating the Byrd Kyrie with chant. But I guess it's not the way to go (now that we've got the facts)?

I hate to through a spanner into the works, but for a liturgical performance using Byrd's Mass for Three Voices, at least in the EF, one would still be required to fill out the missing Kyries and Christes, which I do whenever my choir sings this Mass, with a Gregorian Kyrie/Christe. Whether or not Byrd wrote it this way is moot for our purposes, though it is an interesting debate. There are many precedents to cite in Renaissance polyphony which support the filling in with Gregorian Chant Kyries/Christes which are missing in the polyphony, off the top of my head I seem to remember both the Anerio and Victoria Requiems, though alternating verses of polyphony and Chant is quite common in many pieces of this repertoire. Not to contradict Prof. McCarthy's undoubted scholarship, but it could be Byrd took it for granted that choir directors would know what to do. In one respect I agree, it is clear that the polyphony of the KYRIE is not to be repeated in this Mass, it would sound ridiculous, however, it was quite common to alternate Chant and polyphony. If this is not the case, Byrd's Mass stands nearly alone in the Renaissane repertoire of only singing two Kyries and a Christe in a liturgical setting. As for the argument of saving time during a period of persecution, then why set the CREDO?

Jeffrey Morse, I don't know if that's absolutely true. For example Juan de Esquivel's Missa Ave Virgo Sanctissima has only 2 iterations of each section and there's no plainchant source melody (based on a motet by Guerrero). Same for his Missa de BMV. If CPDL were not being finicky tonight, I could probably find more. As long as the priest says it the proper number of times, I think it's legal.

Good point about the Credo but I'm guessing that he would not even consider not setting the full ordinary.

Well, I just heard the Byrd Mass for 3 at the Byrd festival at a Pontifical High Mass at the Byrd Festival conducted by McCarthy, and, truly, it did not sound ridiculous. Prof. McCarthy was 100% sure about the performance practice in Byrd England and about the general principles. You are right, of course, that there is nothing wrong with offering opinions and things.

Ok, I'll write her again.

When you sing chant, it needs to be 9 fold but not on polyphonic settings.

Sorry about being so zingy up there. I think I was tired and rushing. Obviously this is an important issue and there are many points of view. Tolerance goes a long way--preaching to myself here.

Ok, here is a typically humble response from Prof. McCarthy:

Maybe I'm completely wrong about this. All I can say is that there's no actual evidence the 3-part Kyrie was sung alternatim.
We can't argue from (continental) Italian or (obsolete) Sarum-rite practice, since those were both basically foreign to what was going on in English recusant circles.

Is he advising (chant small letters, polyphony big) something like

KkK
cCc
KkK?

I might call it a touch of excessive rubricism/legalism to ignore what Byrd put down on paper in favor of some idea of greater liturgical propriety - but (big disclaimer) I'm just a musicologist, not a liturgist, and I tend to take my 16th-century brethren at their words.

I think the answer comes in reflection of the audience and situation that Byrd was writing for. The recusant mass was technically illegal, and since the Roman church was not accepted in England at that time, and there was no enforcing body such as a bishop or local ordinary or local liturgical law to adhere to. Byrd was not concerned with conforming his mass to the Liturgical rubrics of the continent - becuase he composed for the Liturgy in his local cultural situation. So the practices of the continental compsers really don't have application the the unique English situation. It is clear that in the original performance, the sections were not repeated to make a nine-fold structure. Whether we would do so today is a seperate question depending on what one's interpretaion of the EF rubrics (such as the several opinions above)
However, fiddling with Byrd's orginal plan seews unwise to me, as it changes the proportions of the music and was not what Byrd originially envisioned. The conflict is between the liturgical environment of his time and ours today.
Also, it just seems to me, that we would have other evidence of English Catholic masses contemprary with Byrd that would have some indication of using chant inbetween the scetions - and I don't think that is the case, my two cents.

Byrd would have been following Roman rubrics, not Sarum rubrics.
If he had been following Sarum practice he would not have provided a polyphonic Kyrie at all.
The Sarum high mass used elaborately troped Kyrie settings sung to chant.
Pre-Reformation English masses--Fayrfax, Taverner, Ludford, Tye, etc.--don't have integral Kyries.

Yes, Jeff, agreed... But don't forget the law of custom: even a custom contra legem can have the force of law, if practiced for long enough. I think that's part of the reason why Redemptionis Sacramentum had to be issued when it was - The Legislator had to make it clear that these customs that were developing contrary to law were not to obtain the force of law because they were being actively opposed by the Legislator.

Daniel - Even if we know that recusant Chapels were using the Roman Rite, we don't know too much about any variants in 'usage' that may have developed. I think this is an area that is worthy of much more research because it has the potential to impact on liturgical music. There are still lots of questions we need to be asking, including: Were all of Byrd's Masses intended for use in recusant chapels or were some for the continental market? What chant was used in recusant chapels? What were the liturgical practices of recusant chapels? What evidence is there? etc.

The one thing I learned in Graduate school for Musicology was that if a Musicologist tells you with "absolute certainty" how something was performed, you can be sure that musicologist is in error!

;-)

By the way, believe it or not, I once heard a lecture from a historical musicologist Renaissance scholar (and I use the term loosely) who offhandedly said that the great Roman masters (Palestrina, Lassus, Marenzio, etc.) who all sang in the Papal chapel "probably weren't very good singers and probably couldn't really even sing in tune." End of story.

All experts make an educated guess. Some get luckier than others at pronouncing the facts.

As per the Kyrie, there are some simple questions you can ask yourself to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion.

1. Are you trying to produce a historically accurate recount of a liturgy as in the day of the composer in question?

If yes, why? If no, go to number two.

2. What do the rubrics presently require of the Kyrie?

3. How do the rubrics today mesh with the composition in question?

4. What is the acceptable solution?

A personal note about litugical music composition.

Liturgical composition is different from all other music composition because the music is not the end in itself. Because it is married to the liturgical text and action it must ALWAYS be subject to the proper liturgical expression of the present moment. The liturgy is not a fixed art. It is constantly moving toward a more perfect state (with glitches and hiccups along the way). That is the messiness and the beauty of our humanity. The church understands and makes allowances for these deviations (sometimes to an extreme as we are well aware!) There then evolves a body of liturgical music that reflects the growth of the liturgy. From time to time, I love to look at photographs of my children when they were young. I find in them their innocence, their simplicity, and their naivety. But that child has moved on to become something completely different in the present-sometimes for better, sometimes not. I find it is much the same with the liturgy. We will never "arrive" until the liturgy of heaven.

"videmus nunc per speculum in enigmate tunc autem facie ad faciem nunc cognosco ex parte tunc autem cognoscam sicut et cognitus sum"

the great Roman masters (Palestrina, Lassus, Marenzio, etc.) who all sang in the Papal chapel "probably weren't very good singers and probably couldn't really even sing in tune"

Wrong at least on Lasso's account. We know he was hired away as a boy from his parish church in Hainaut precisely because of his vocal skills, and we also know that when he led the chapel at Albrecht V's in Bavaria, he and his envoys would raid parishes of singers pretty regularly. His own music made considerable demands, on many levels.

The only conclusion you can derive from the evidence is that vocal skills at Lasso's level must have been high, in demand, and valued. I imagine the same holds for Palestrina and Marenzio.

I did find this one and am assuming it is the correct version.

http://www.cpdl.org/wiki/images/sheet/byrd-m31.pdf

Now here is a 'creative solution' (massive editing without changing the notes on the page except 2!) which is highly out of the "Ordinary", but completely within it at the same time (pun intended). After examining the musical theoretical structure, it would seem to be quite artistic to utilize the piece in this fashion. It straddles a homophonic/polyphonic structure which gives you a lot of options. It also just happens to contain the perfect number of vocal parts (3) to coincide with the rubrics of 3-3-3. Three is beautiful!

Creative Solution 1: Have choir sing each of the sections in strict meter and end each with a fermata, having each part enter in succession (see the chart below). This works because Byrd employed a heavy use of thirds and sixths in the tenor, which makes for excellent harmonic progression when sung against the cantus. This is especially seemless with the final Kyrie as the final note in the alto is the exact same pitch as the entrance of the tenor. You can also increase the tension and resolution by not resolving to the B and A natural in the tenor the first time through. (Since this progression has never been sung or heard this way before, it will sound foreign to your choir until they get used to it). Alter the final cadence by maintaining the usual flats, and then for the last strophe, perform the final cadence as written which will bring heightened resolve. This will also eliminate the odd voice leading from Bnatural to Bflat from the Tenor to the Alto between the second and third strophe of the final Kyrie.

K - Alto alone
K2 - Alto and Tenor
K3 - Alto, Tenor and Bass (fermata)

C - Alto alone
C2 - Alto and Tenor
C3 - Alto, Tenor and Bass (fermata)

K - Alto alone
K2 - Alto and Tenor (tenor maintains Ab and Bb)
K3 - Alto, Tenor and Bass (fermata) (tenor sings the Anatural and Bnatural)

Creative Solution 2. (if you really wanted to be daring, and stylistically avante garde (did "I" suggest avante garde?! Mea Culpa!), switch out the alto and bass parts for the final Kyrie - Bass would sing alto an octave below, then the tenor would enter as usual, finally the alto would sing the bass part an octave above, but softer as not to overwhelm the cantus.) I often use this technique of switching parts between voices to achieve contrasting sonorities in early music (and in my own comps) to get some wonderfully beautiful variations using the exact same printed music.

A small example of how ancient music and present (1962) rubrics can quite easily attain an equilibrium for today's liturgical requirements. Its kinda like photoshopping my kids younger face on his older body!

Pes:

Please post a recording if you ever have the opportunity. It would make a perfect audio illustration! I totally agree.. We could go on forever mining all the possibilities that are intrinsic to the music we already own.

OK... here is a Kyrie based on the Byrd Kyrie following the suggestions I made earlier. Once I got into this, I began to take some liberties as needed to make this so that it isn't too repetitive. This will be in the 1 minute range on a real performance.

Hear a Sibelius Simulation Here