Editing William Byrd (section)

===Consort music===
{{listen|type=music
 | filename     = William Byrd - Browning a5.ogg
 | title        = Browning à5, London. GB-Lbl, Add.Ms.31390 (ca.1578)
 | filename2     = William Byrd (ca.1540-1623) - Fantasia à4, VdGS No.1 from Psalms, Songs & Sonnets (1611).ogg
 | title2        = Fantasia à4, VdGS No.1 from Psalms, Songs & Sonnets (1611)
 | filename3     = William Byrd (ca.1540-1623) - In Nomine à4, VdGS No.1, Oxford. Bodleian Library, Mus.Sch.d.212-6 (ca.1610).ogg
 | title3        = In Nomine à4, VdGS No.1, Oxford. Bodleian Library, Mus.Sch.d.212-6 (ca.1610)
}}

The period up to 1591 also saw important additions to Byrd's output of consort music, some of which have probably been lost. Two magnificent large-scale compositions are the ''Browning'', a set of 20 variations on a popular melody (also known as "The leaves be green") which evidently originated as a celebration of the ripening of nuts in autumn, and an elaborate ground on the formula known as the ''Goodnight Ground''. The smaller-scale fantasias (those a3 and a4) use a light-textured imitative style which owes something to Continental models, while the five and six-part fantasias employ large-scale cumulative construction and allusions to snatches of popular songs. A good example of the last type is the ''Fantasia a6 (No 2)'' which begins with a sober imitative paragraph before progressively more fragmented textures (working in a quotation from ''Greensleeves'' at one point). It even includes a complete three-strain galliard, followed by an expansive coda (for a performance on YouTube, see under 'External links' below). The single five-part fantasia, which is apparently an early work, includes a canon at the upper fourth.{{citation needed|date=July 2024}}