We are excited to share our recording of William Byrd’s Ave Verum, recorded live in Keble Chapel on 21st Febuary at the opening concert of the Keble Early Music Festival 2024.
“Ave Verum” may well be Byrd’s best-known work. It was published in 1605 in Gradualia I. Byrd, a life-long Roman Catholic, did not follow contemporaries such as John Bull, Richard Dering and Peter Phillips to the Low Lands to escape persecution. Rather, he remained working in England, and later in life, having retired from his Cathedral and Chapel Royal positions, instead was patronised by recusant noble families and distributed polyphony for use at their illicit services. “Ave verum”, along with the rest of the Gradualia, is an example of such. The text of “Ave Verum” is in praise of the Blessed Sacrament, and may have been used as an elevation motet to cover the Prayer of Consecration, which was historically said silently. It is conceivable that Byrd’s “Ave verum” would have therefore been used alongside his three masses at a private and illegal Roman Catholic Mass.
