WHEN Pope Pius V excommunicated Queen Elizabeth I in February 1570, he made life very difficult for English Roman Catholics, who were forced to practise their religion in secret. One such was the composer William Byrd. Despite his considerable professional success as a composer of Anglican church music — he was a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal — he retired to Essex in 1593 to be near his Catholic patron, Sir John Petre, and composed three Masses for use by recusants in private houses.

In an immersive experience created and directed by Bill Barclay, the Gesualdo Six and the viols of the Fretwork consort recreated in the open space of Sinfonia Smith Square (the name, since 2024, given to the former church St John’s, Smith Square), a clandestine house mass using Byrd’s music as it might have taken place in Petre’s Ingatestone Hall.

A singer, soberly dressed in Elizabethan black and white, ushered us upstairs in groups to an interior dimly lit by banks of candles. There was a whiff of incense in the air, and viols played quietly three three-part Fantasias and the Fantasia on The Leaves be Green. We took our seats in chairs scattered around the space, the viols playing at the front, where the altar used to be. A priest and five costumed singers sat round a central raised table laden with food, and the impedimenta of mass celebration, singing Byrd’s Mass for Five Voices from facsimile partbooks, its movements interspersed with more Fantasias. The lack of light concentrated our senses wonderfully. We were completely focused on the central action.

Suddenly there was a knocking. The priest vanished hurriedly, the candles were extinguished. As the viols played two Six-part Inventions and an In Nomine, a servant served us vegetable broth and the finest white manchet bread: we were honoured guests.

sophie oliver photographyThe performance in Sinfonia Smith Square

The priest was led quietly through the church by candlelight and vanished up the stairs, the candles were lit, the strings accompanied the remaining four singers in the Elegy on the death of Thomas Tallis (Ye Sacred Muses) and the Agnus Dei from the Mass for Four Voices. There was a representation of communion — not an actual one, out of proper respect — and a hint of secular joy at the Mass’s completion with a viol Pavan and Galliard. A moment of sober reflections for all six singers with Infelix ego preceded a joyous Haec Dies (This is the day that the Lord has made).

It was totally absorbing. The audience were riveted, moving only when the viols played. There are further performances on 24 May in St John’s Kirk, Perth, and 1 June in Bath Abbey. Hurry.

www.thegesualdosix.co.uk.