Byrd at Elizabeth’s Court

William Byrd played a central role in the colourful musical life of Queen Elizabeth I’s court, where voices and viols combined in songs celebrating Elizabeth and honouring her courtiers, in settings of psalms and spiritual poetry, and in sophisticated pavans and galliards for her to dance to. His famous ‘Lullaby’ was often performed at court, and a new work by Juta Pranulyte, commissioned jointly by NCEM, The Marian Consort and the Rose Consort, celebrates the universal truth of a mother singing her child to sleep in troubled times.