William Byrd - Have Mercy Upon Me, O God

Have mercy upon me, O God, consort song for S or A solo, SSATTB & organ or strings (inc. but can be reconstructed)

Rose Consort of Viols
Red Byrd

Although it is common to goup most of William Byrd's English-text vocal pieces under the heading "Elizabethan madrigals", very few of those pieces are actually madrigals in any real sense of the term. Byrd himself tells us, via a printed preface, that all the vocal ensemble works in his 1588 published collection were in fact originally composed as solo songs and not madrigals, and throughout all his later collections works of that same sort-accompanied solo songs-pop up from time to time. Most of these, such as the well-known Ah silly soul for voice and five viols from the 1611 Psalmes, songs, and sonnets, are relatively straightforward in conception; the six-voice verse anthem Have mercy upon me O God from the same publication, however, is among the most intricately scored of the Byrd's works, employing not only a solo voice and four viols, but also a chorus of five additional singers as well.

The first two verses of Psalm 51 serve as the text for Have mercy upon me O God, which is one of several English Psalm settings composed between around 1590 and 1611 that appear in the 1611 publication. The text itself is relatively brief:

(1) Have mercy upon me O God, (2) after thy great goodness. (3) And according to the multitude of thy mercies wipe away mine offenses. (4) Wash me clean of wickedness, and purge me from my sins.

Nevertheless, Byrd sets up a very large-scale musical structure that spans nearly seventy-five bars (in the modern 4-2 transcription). The text is laid out in eight well-defined sections, alternating solo voice (and viols) with choruses for five (and, during the final climactic portion, the full six) voices, presumably still accompanied by the instruments, as follows: (1) solo; (1) chorus; (1) + (2) solo; (1) + (2) chorus; (3) solo; (3) chorus; (4) solo; (4) *six-voice* chorus. As the music unfolds, a general expansion of musical dimensions takes place, so that, omitting for the time being the four-bar instrumental introduction and the final tutti Amen, phrase-groups of 5, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, 10, and 14 bars are created.

Given that the work is a kind of religious anthem, it comes as no surprise that homophony is more prevalent here than in most of Byrd's compositions, and that even during its most elaborate and melismatic moments the music never achieves real counterpoint, at least not in the typical sense of the word. Imitation is very localized, limited to a brief motive or two (a good example being the interplay between the solo soprano and the tenor and bass viols in bars 16, 17, and 18). Only the thrilling, dense imitation on the half-note motive of "purge me from my sins" during the final six-voice chorus stands as an exception to this rule.


Art by Sean Scully