Hyperion Records

This is the first of Byrd’s three ‘short’ grounds, based on a little 4-bar repeating bass pattern (here heard alone at the start). The other two are BK9 and BK86. They are clearly all early works, probably dating from the 1560s. Despite the shortness of the 4-bar ground (in the C major Ionian mode), Byrd’s paragraphs are, as always, built in phrases that are much larger than the short ground itself. The first one, for example, covers more than eight statements of the bass.

The Regal stop (used here) was often found on small organs in sixteenth-century England. Several such instruments were listed on the inventory of Henry VIII’s instruments in 1547, for example the ‘faire Instrument being Regalles and Virgynalles’ that was in the ‘Kinges privey Chambre’. Such instruments were sometimes described as having a ‘stoppe of timbre pipes’. The instrument continued to be popular throughout the sixteenth century. William Treasorer, for example, was ‘Regall maker’ to both Edward VI and Elizabeth I.

from notes by Davitt Moroney © 1999