These works survive in a manuscript dating from about 1600 (as well as in a recently discovered fragmentary source), but they must have been written considerably earlier. They are often overshadowed by Byrd’s more famous Aeolian mode A minor pavans and galliards, the third in the Nevell
sequence (BK14), a ‘16-bar’ work, and the ‘8-bar’ Earle of Salisbury
(BK15a); yet it would be a pity to overlook this pair. Here is a ‘16-bar’ pavan, with its six sections running to 96 semibreves; it is a fine example of Byrd’s early mastery of the form. Each strain is harmonically different: the three strains start on the unexpected chords of E major, C major and A major. Above all, it works out a systematic rhythmic progression from the slow semibreve harmonies in the first strain, through the minim harmonies in the second, to the crotchet movement and quaver syncopations in the third. The excellent galliard (whose varied strains start on the chords of A minor, F major and A major) sounds almost as if it could originally have been a song.
from notes by Davitt Moroney © 1999