William Byrd (c. 1540 – 1623) was an English Renaissance composer. Considered among the greatest composers of the Renaissance, he had a profound influence on composers both from his native country and on the Continent. He is often considered along with John Dunstaple and Henry Purcell as one of England's most important composers of early music.

Byrd wrote in many of the forms current in England at the time, including various types of sacred and secular polyphony, keyboard (the so-called Virginalist school), and consort music. He produced sacred music for Anglican services, but during the 1570s became a Roman Catholic, and wrote Catholic sacred music later in his life. Details of his childhood are speculative. There is no documentary evidence concerning Byrd's education or early musical training. His two brothers were choristers at St. Paul's Cathedral, and Byrd may have been a chorister there as well, although it is possible that he was a chorister with the Chapel Royal. According to Anthony Wood, Byrd was "bred up to musick under Tho. Tallis", and a reference in the Cantiones sacrae, published by Byrd and Thomas Tallis in 1575, tends to confirm that Byrd was a pupil of Tallis in the Chapel Royal. If he was—and conclusive evidence has not emerged to verify it, but it seems likely that once Byrd's voice broke, the boy stayed on at the Chapel Royal as Tallis's assistant.

Byrd produced student compositions, including Sermone Blando for consort, and a "Miserere". Church music for the Catholic rite reintroduced by Mary would have been composed before her death in 1558, which occurred when Byrd was eighteen. Following the commercial failure of the Cantiones Sacrae, published jointly with Tallis in 1575, Byrd waited another eleven years before venturing into print again. This time, he trusted his fortunes to a collection of secular music, no doubt encouraged by the growing popularity in England of Italian madrigals adapted to English words, and specifically to the success in the same year of Nicholas Yonge's collection Musica Transalpina (which had itself included a piece by him). This time, too, he had judged public taste better, as the collection was a great success and went through several editions in the following years.

Despite the popularity of the pieces, all of which are for 5 voices, it appears that none of them were originally written as unaccompanied polyphonic songs, but that all originated as consort songs for a single voice and four viols. Byrd acknowledges these origins in the print, often designating the original solo voice as "the first singing part".

Source: Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Byrd).

Although originally written for Chorus (SATB) and Piano, I created this interpretation of "Lullaby My Sweet Little Baby" (T 242) from "Psalmes, Sonets and Songs" (No.32) for Wind Quintet (Flute, Oboe, English Horn, French Horn & Bassoon).