JEREMY L. SMITH is Professor of Musicology at the University of Colorado Boulder.
An excellent addition to Byrd scholarship. * THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY JOURNAL * On the basis of the allusions and intertextualities that he teases out of the songs, Smith posits an original interpretation: an expansive, continuous sequence and underlying narrative span both volumes. * RENAISSANCE QUARTERLY * [V]ital reading for musicologists, contains much of great value for literary scholars, and must not be neglected by historians. * BRITISH CATHOLIC HISTORY * [U]ntil now there has been no extensive study of what the words set by Byrd in his 1588 and 1589 song collections really mean, that is, 'what they are,' apart from songs. Smith...offers a brilliant, rich, provocative examination of Byrd's manipulation of his song texts-how he organized them and conveyed hidden meanings and a grand narrative to his Catholic, recusant friends...This superlative study is replete with arcane vocabulary, forests of footnotes, and a definitive display of Smith's control of the literature and the original documents. This demanding book is for scholars with deep knowledge of Byrd. Summing Up: Highly recommended. * CHOICE *