The consort song, briefly defined, was a fairly short-lived but historically important English genre from the end of the fifteenth century. It consists of a small group (a consort) of instruments and a single vocalist; the instruments are presumably viols and the singer is in the countertenor/low alto range. In its construction, the musical phrase is equivalent to the line of verse; the music and melody are in fact more inspired by the solemn meter of the verse than by its content. The beautiful vocal part contains no dazzling display; it is even simpler than the slow viol lines, a golden, ornamental rim on the stately contrapuntal mechanism. Byrd obviously had a personal interest in the genre because he continued composing consort songs long after the genre passed from fashion in favor of the Italian madrigal. For that reason, quite a number of the consort songs never found their way into print; over 40 such pieces have been recovered from manuscript sources, such as With Lilies White. A work of scintillating, jeweled melancholy, With Lilies White sets an elegy by Edward Paston. Paston was an aristocrat and amateur poet who so liked to have his occasional verses set to music that sometimes he would simply take a pre-existing song and put his own words in place of the original text. Although With Lilies White is only found in a manuscript of Paston's, Byrd was almost certainly active in its creation. The figure elegized is the Dowager Lady Magdalen Montague, whose granddaughter married one of Paston's sons. Montague was a small legend of female Catholic chastity in her time, having famously deflected the advances of Phillip II of Spain while still a young woman. The devout Byrd, being among the embattled ranks of British Catholics, certainly would have grasped her importance to his cause well enough to set an elegy for her when she died in 1608. With Lilies White is among Byrd's finest and most moving consort songs for its slightly unpredictable, well-crafted melody and its breathlessly high contrapuntal finesse. ~ Donato Mancini, All Music Guide
