EX. 16-19B William Byrd, Mass in Five Parts, Credo, mm. 157–68Byrd’s setting of the line begins with a violent chordal tutti that disrupts a pair of elegant polyphonic
trios, and continues in agitated homorhythmic declamation replete with a near-bombastic repetition of the
words apostolicam ecclesiam— “a church sent by God” (not instituted by a king!)—that sends the
passage to its melodic peak. After this shriek of Catholic defiance, the concluding Amen, entirely set apart
from the rest by a cadence and a fermata, comes across as no mere ending formula but as a genuine
intensifier, the very essence of affirmation. The whole history of the English Reformation and the plight of
the recusants seems to be contained in this Credo as in a musical microcosm. At the very least, for Byrd
these words were just what they were not (because they did not need to be) for Palestrina: a personal,
rather than an institutional, Credo; a profession of dangerous personal faith.