''Ye Sacred Muses'' is William Byrd's Musical elegy on the death of his colleague and mentor, Thomas Tallis, in the form of a secular madrigal. It is scored for 5 voices (usually four viols and

countertenor A countertenor (also contra tenor) is a type of classical male singing voice whose vocal range is equivalent to that of the female contralto or mezzo-soprano voice types, generally extending from around G3 to D5 or E5, although a sopranist (a s ...

), though the vocal part is scored for treble voice, or a cappella SATTB choir. The words are:- :Ye sacred

Muses In ancient Greek religion and mythology, the Muses ( grc, Μοῦσαι, Moûsai, el, Μούσες, Múses) are the inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge embodied in the p ...

, race of

Jove Jupiter ( la, Iūpiter or , from Proto-Italic "day, sky" + "father", thus " sky father" Greek: Δίας or Ζεύς), also known as Jove (gen. ''Iovis'' ), is the god of the sky and thunder, and king of the gods in ancient Roman religion a ...

, :whom Music's lore delighteth, :Come down from crystal heav'ns above :to earth where sorrow dwelleth, :In mourning weeds, with tears in eyes: :Tallis is dead, and Music dies. The concluding lines are particularly effective and are repeated. The tonality of the piece is slightly ambiguous, as despite its ending on a D major chord, it never really settles in any one key. Byrd uses the Dorian mode whilst his Renaissance contemporaries generally avoided the use of Medieval modes either by sharpening leading tones or lowering the fourth in the Lydian mode. Byrd's use of the Dorian mode can be seen in the very first phrase of the piece.

External links

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Informal performance by 'Wolftooth' (viol consort and alto)
Funerary and memorial compositions Compositions by William Byrd Thomas Tallis Composer tributes (classical music) {{classical-composition-stub