ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the life of the composer William Byrd in London during the period 1540–1562. On high ground towards London's western gateways rose the gothic bulk of old St Paul's. It was here that Byrd's elder brothers became choristers. The boys of St Paul's played before Queen Elizabeth many times after her accession in 1558. Byrd has been regarded as a pupil in music of the composer Thomas Tallis, who was an organist in the Chapel Royal. The evidence lies in a Latin poem prefacing Cantiones, quae ab argumento sacrae vocantur, published jointly by Byrd and Tallis in 1575. Byrd was too young to have been the 'Wyllyam Byrd' who was a chorister at Westminster Abbey in 1542–43. It is feasible that he followed his brothers into the choir of St Paul's Cathedral. Byrd's youthful musical skills suggest early recognition and training of the kind he might have received in the Chapel Royal.
