ABSTRACT
The year 1588 saw the beginning of a great burst of activity in the printing of songs in London. William Byrd led the way with two major collections. Thirty-five of his songs were printed as Psalmes, sonets & songs in 1588. Byrd's songs for three and four voices have a special place in his work. For twenty years or more he had written only incidentally for three voices, and infrequently for four voices. In setting the solo voice part so that the long syllables are rendered as minims and the short syllables as crotchets, Byrd reflected the ideas of Baïf and Courville which were transmitted to England by Sidney. The term 'consort song' has come to denote 'the use of a consort of viols together with a solo voice or voices, and it covers the addition of a chorus of voices in a later development which turns the consort song into the secular counterpart of a verse anthem'.
