The Tudor Society
  • August 9 – Composer Nicholas Ludford

    A photo of St Margaret's, Westminster, by Reinhold Möller.

    On this day in Tudor history, 9th August 1557, composer Nicholas Ludford was buried in St Margaret’s Church, Westminster, in a vault with his first wife, Anne..

    Ludford is known for his festal masses, which can be found in the Caius and Lambeth choirbooks (1521-27) and the Peterhouse partbooks (1539-40).

    His biographer David Skinner described Ludford as “one of the last unsung geniuses of Tudor polyphony”.

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  • July 4 – Elizabethan composer William Byrd

    On 4th July 1623, Elizabethan composer, William Byrd died at Stondon Massey in Essex.

    Byrd served as a gentleman of the Chapel Royal from 1572, and in 1575 he and fellow composer Thomas Tallis were granted a patent for the importing, printing, publishing, and sale of music, and the printing of music paper for a period of twenty-one years. They published a collection of 34 motets – 16 written by Tallis and 18 by Byrd, in 1575 as their first work.

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  • 4 July – William Byrd “a father of Musick”

    On 4th July 1623, Elizabethan composer William Byrd died.

    Find out about William Byrd, his association with Thomas Tallis, and his works, in this latest edition of #TudorHistoryShorts…

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