Description
This sweet and merry month of May is one of the very few pieces by William Byrd that might rightly be called a madrigal. However common it has become to refer to almost all his English-texted vocal works as ‘Elizabethan madrigals’, the fact remains that Byrd was generally reluctant to allow the Italian madrigal style—with its heightened emotional expression and lavish word painting—to influence his own musical language. It was only to satisfy the publisher Thomas Watson’s wish to include the work of a native British composer in his Italian madrigalls, Englished collection of 1590 that Byrd truly invested his energy in such music.
© Owain Park 2026
This sweet and merry month of May,
While Nature wantons in her prime,
And birds do sing, and beasts do play
For pleasure of the joyful time,
I choose the first for holiday,
And greet Eliza with a rhyme:
O beauteous Queen of second Troy,
Take well in worth a simple toy.
attr. Thomas Watson
