ABSTRACT
William Byrd's intention seems to have been to lay out the contents in three groups: grounds, dances and programmatic pieces, pavans and galliards, and fantasias and variations. Byrd began working out a virginal style – that is to say, one with sonorities particularly suited to a plucked keyboard instrument – in sets of variations based on harmonic grounds and popular tunes. Byrd's comprehensive designs contrast with many of the poorly planned sets of variations written by his successors. John Bull's set on Walsingham, longer and showier than Byrd's but rather ramshackle in its overall construction, bears out Ward's statement that he 'added to it at different times'. The similarity underscores the popular nature of the materials on which Byrd consistently based his variations after he gave up using cantus firmi in instrumental music.
