Virginals

Flemish virginals (Paris, Musée de la Musique). Note the inset keyboard placed left of centre.
Classification	Keyboard instrument
Playing range
C/E to c3 (45 notes); some Italian models C to f3 (54 notes)
Related instruments
harpsichord, spinet, clavicytherium

The virginals or virginal (the plural form does not necessarily denote more than one instrument)^[1] is a keyboard instrument of the harpsichord family. It was popular in northern Europe and Italy during the late Renaissance and early baroque periods.

Description[link]

The virginals is a smaller and simpler rectangular form of the harpsichord with only one string per note running more or less parallel to the keyboard on the long side of the case. Many, if not most, of the instruments were constructed without legs, and would be placed on a table for playing. Later models were built with their own stands.

Mechanism[link]

The mechanism of the virginals is identical to that of the harpsichord in that its wire strings are plucked by plectra mounted in jacks. Its case, however, is rectangular, and the single choir of strings, with one string per note, runs roughly parallel to the keyboard. This arrangement causes the strings to be plucked nearer the middle rather than at one end, as in the case of the harpsichord, and produces a richer, flute-like tone.

Etymology[link]

The origin of the name is obscure. One theory derives it from the Latin virga meaning a rod, perhaps referring to the wooden jacks that rest on the ends of the keys; however, this theory is unproven.^[2] Another possibility is that the name derives from the instrument's association with female performers, or its sound, which is like a young girl's voice (vox virginalis).^[2] Other views are that the term comes from the word virgin, as it was most commonly played by young women,^[3] or that the name derives from the Virgin Mary as it was used by nuns to accompany hymns in honour of the Virgin.

In England, during the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras, any stringed keyboard instrument was often described as a virginals, and could equally well apply to a harpsichord or possibly even a clavichord or spinet. Thus the masterworks of William Byrd and his contemporaries were often played on full-size, Italian or Flemish harpsichords and not only on the virginals as we call it today. Contemporary nomenclature often referred to a pair of virginals, which implied a single instrument, possibly a harpsichord with two registers, or a double virginals (see below).^[4]

History[link]

Like the harpsichord, the virginals has its origins in the medieval psaltery to which a keyboard was applied, probably in the 15th century. The first mention of the word is in Paulus Paulirinus of Prague's (1413–1471) Tractatus de musica of around 1460 where he writes: The virginal is an instrument in the shape of a clavichord, having metal strings which give it the timbre of a clavicembalo. It has 32 courses of strings set in motion by striking the fingers on projecting keys, giving a dulcet tone in both whole and half steps. It is called a virginal because, like a virgin, it sounds with a gentle and undisturbed voice. The OED records its first mention in English in 1530, when King Henry VIII purchased five such instruments. Small early virginals were played either in the lap, or more commonly, rested on a table,^[5] but nearly all later examples were provided with their own stands.

The heyday of the virginals was the latter half of the 16th century to the later 17th century until the high baroque period when it was eclipsed in England by the bentside spinet and in Germany by the clavichord.

Types[link]

An Italian spinetta or virginals after A. Bertolotti, c. 1586, provided with a false outer case. Note the projecting keyboard, unlike the inset Flemish examples.

Spinet virginals[link]

Spinet virginals (not to be confused with the spinet) were made principally in Italy (Italian: spinetta), England and Flanders (Dutch: spinetten). The keyboard is placed left of centre, and the strings are plucked at one end, although further from the bridge than in the harpsichord. This is the more common arrangement for modern instruments, and an instrument described simply as a "virginal" is likely to be a spinet virginals. The principal differences in construction lie mainly in the placement of the keyboard: Italian instruments invariably had a keyboard that projected from the case, whilst northern virginals had their keyboards recessed in a keywell. The cases of Italian instruments were made of cypress wood and were of delicate manufacture, whilst northern virginals were usually more stoutly constructed of poplar. Early Italian virginals were usually hexagonal in shape, the case following the lines of the strings and bridges, and a few early Flemish examples are similarly made. From about 1580 however, nearly all virginals were rectangular, the Italian models often having an outer case like harpsichords from that country. There are very few surviving English virginals, all of them late. They generally follow the Flemish construction, but with a vaulted lid.

Muselars[link]

Woman at a muselar, by Johannes Vermeer, c. 1672 (National Gallery, London). Note the keyboard placed to the right.

A typical muselar of the Ruckers school. Note the keyboard on the right of the case.

Muselars (also muselaar) were made only in northern Europe. Here, the keyboard is placed right of centre and the strings are plucked about one-third the way along their sounding length. This gives a warm, rich, resonant sound, with a strong fundamental and weak overtones. However, this comes at a price: the jacks and keys for the left hand are inevitably placed in the middle of the instrument's soundboard, with the result that any mechanical noise from these is amplified. In addition to mechanical noise, from the string vibrating against the descending plectrum, the central plucking point in the bass makes repetition difficult, because the motion of the still-sounding string interferes with the ability of the plectrum to connect again. An 18th-century commentator (Van Blankenberg, 1739) wrote that muselars "grunt in the bass like young pigs". Thus the muselar was better suited to chord-and-melody music without complex left hand parts. The muselar could also be provided with a stop called the harpichordium (also arpichordium), which consists of lead hooks being lightly applied against the ends of the bass strings in such a manner that the string vibrating against the hook produces a buzzing, snarling sound.

Muselars were popular in the 16th and 17th centuries and their ubiquity has been compared to that of the upright piano in the early 20th century, but like other types of virginals they fell out of use in the 18th century.

Ottavini[link]

Both Italian and northern schools produced a miniature virginals called the ottavino. Ottavini were pitched an octave higher than the larger instrument. In the Flemish tradition these were often – perhaps always – sold together with a large virginals, to which the ottavino could be coupled (see Double Virginals below). In the Italian tradition, an ottavino was usually a separate instrument of its own, being fitted in its own outer case, just like larger Italian instruments.

Double virginal by Hans Ruckers, Antwerp, 1581. Gift of B.H. Homan, 1929. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Double virginals[link]

The Flemish school, in particular the Ruckers family, produced a special type of virginals known as Mother and Child (moeder und kind). This consisted of two instruments in one: a normal virginals (either spinet or muselar) with one (say) 6' register, and an ottavino with one 3' register. The smaller ottavino was stored (rather like a drawer) under the soundboard next to the keyboard of the larger instrument, and could be withdrawn and played as a separate keyboard instrument. However, the two instruments could also be coupled together, the ottavino being placed over the strings of the larger virginals (once the jackrail was removed), so that the jacks of the latter passed through a slot in the bottom of the ottavino. The jacks of the larger instrument now activated the keys of the ottavino, so that both instruments sounded simultaneously, giving a more brilliant effect.

Compass and pitch[link]

The keyboard compass of most virginals was C/E to c3 (45 notes, 4 octaves), which allowed the performance of the music contemporarily available for the instruments. The lower octave was tuned to a short octave, so that the bottom E sounded C, the bottom F# sounded D, and the bottom G# sounded E, thus making use of nominal keys that were rarely used in the contemporary repertory. Some Italian models ranged from C to f3 (54 notes, 4 ½ octaves).

Virginals were available in various sizes. The Dutch organist and harpsichordist Class Douwes (circa 1650 – circa 1725) mentions instruments from nominal 6 foot down to 2 ½ feet.^[6] The pitch differences between the models offered by the Ruckers workshops were by no means arbitrary, but corresponded to the musical intervals of a tone, a fourth, a fifth, an octave, and a ninth. Pitch assignments have been suggested for these instruments based on scalings provided by Douwes.^[7] Most modern instruments are full-sized ones at 8' pitch or ottavini at 4' pitch, although there are no surviving Ruckers instruments of this pitch, and most probably none were ever made by his workshop.

Decoration[link]

Whilst many early virginals throughout Europe were left in plain wood, they were soon provided with rich decoration, which may have contributed to the survival of many such instruments. From mouldings on case edges, jackrails and namebattens to adornment with ivory, mother-of-pearl, marble, agate, tortoiseshell or semi-precious stones, not to mention intricate painting, no expense was spared by those who could afford it.

Most Flemish virginals had their soundboards painted with flowers, fruit, birds, caterpillars, moths and even cooked prawns, all within blue scalloped borders and intricate blue arabesques. Many of these motifs appear to be resurrection symbols (Germann, p. 28). Natural keys were normally covered in bone, and sharps were of oak or, less commonly, chestnut. The case exteriors were usually marbled, whilst the inside was decorated with elaborate block-printed papers. Occasionally the inside of the lid bore a decorative scene; more often it was covered with block-printed papers embellished with a Latin motto, usually connected with morality or music. Mottos could also be applied to the keywell batten. Some typical mottos include:

• SIC TRANSIT GLORIA MVNDI (Thus passes the glory of the world)
• MVSICA DVLCE LABORVM LEVAMEN (Sweet music is the solace of labour)
• MVSICA DONVM DEI (Music is the gift of God)

The Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer (1632 – 1675) was one among several who produced paintings including examples of virginals.

The Music Lesson, by Johannes Vermeer

Lady standing at a muselar, by Johannes Vermeer

There was no such "standard decoration" for Italian virginals. Where there was an outer case, it was often this that was decorated, leaving the actual instrument plain (typically for Venetian virginals). Cases could be decorated with paintings of grotesques, classical scenes, or marquetry, but soundboards were rarely painted. Keytops could be of plain boxwood, or lavishly decorated (as was often the case in northern Italy) with ivory, ebony, mother-of-pearl or tortoiseshell among other materials.

Traditionally, the soundboards of both northern and Italian virginals were pierced with a rose, sometimes two or three in early days. The rose had no acoustic function, and was purely decorative. Although these were a throwback to the rose in the medieval lute, they were never carved integrally as part of the soundboard. In Italian instruments they were usually constructed by combining multiple layers of pierced parchment, so that the final result looked like a gothic rose window, or an inverted wedding cake. In Flemish instruments, the rose was usually cast from lead and gilded, and usually incorporated the maker's initials.

Composers and collections of works[link]

As has been noted above, the word virginals could be applied to any stringed keyboard instrument, and since there was very rarely any indication of instrumentation on musical scores in the heyday of the virginals, there are hardly any compositions that can be said to be specifically for that instrument. Indeed, nearly all the keyboard music of the renaissance sounds equally well on harpsichord, virginals, clavichord or organ, and it is doubtful if any composer had a particular instrument in mind when writing keyboard scores. A list of composers for writing for the virginals (among other instruments) may be found under virginalist. Although the "virginalist school" usually refers to English composers, it would not be incorrect to use the word in connection with some continental keyboard composers of the period, such as Girolamo Frescobaldi and Giovanni Picchi, or Samuel Scheidt and Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck.

Out of the some dozen so-called English "virginal books" (see below), only one actually bears the word in its original title: the other collections were attributed the name by music scholars in the nineteenth or twentieth centuries.

A selection of English "virginal books" includes:

• The Mulliner Book
• The Dublin Virginal Manuscript
• Elizabeth Roger's Virginal Book
• Fitzwilliam Virginal Book
• My Ladye Nevells Booke
• Clement Matchett's Virginal Book
• Parthenia
• Priscilla Bunbury's Virginal Book
• Will Forster's Virginal Book
• Anne Cromwell's Virginal Book

Further reading[link]

• Germann, Sheridan, "Harpsichord Decoration – A Conspectus" In The Historical Harpsichord, vol. IV. General Editor: Howard Schott. Pendragon Press, Hillsdale, NY, 2002. ISBN 0-945193-75-0
• Hubbard, Frank, Three Centuries of Harpsichord Making, 2nd ed., Harvard University Press, 1967. ISBN 0-674-88845-6
• Kottick, Edward, A History of the Harpsichord, Indiana University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-253-34166-3
• O'Brien, Grant, Ruckers: A Harpsichord and Virginal Building Tradition, Cambridge University Press, 2008. ISBN 978-0-521-06682-2
• Rueger, Christoph, Musical Instruments and Their Decoration, Seven Hills Books, Cincinnati, Ohio, 1986. ISBN 0-911403-17-5
• Russell, Raymond, The Harpsichord and Clavichord: an introductory study, 2nd ed., London : Faber and Faber, 1973. ISBN 0-571-04795-5
• Yorke, James, Keyboard Instruments at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, London 1986. ISBN 0-948107-04-9

Extant Virginals at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

• Double virginal by Hans Ruckers, 1581
• Spinetta or virginal, Venice, 1540
• Double virginal by Ludovicus Growelus, ca. 1600
• Octave virginal, Augsburg, ca. 1600
• Muselar virginal by Jan Ruckers, 1622
• Ottavino, before 1668, Rome

Notes[link]

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Virginal.

This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (June 2010)

William Byrd

William Byrd (1540 or late 1539 – 4 July 1623) was an English composer of the Renaissance. He wrote in many of the forms current in England at the time, including various types of sacred and secular polyphony, keyboard (the so-called Virginalist school) and consort music.

Provenance[link]

Knowledge of Byrd's biography expanded in the late 20th century, thanks largely to the research of John Harley (Harley, 1997). Following the discovery of a document dated 2 October 1598 in which Byrd's age is given as "58 years or there abouts," it now appears that he was born in 1540. The older dating 1542–3 is derived from Byrd's will (endorsed on 22 November 1622) which describes him as 'in the 80th year of my age'. It now becomes clear that it must have been drafted about three years earlier than the date of endorsement. Byrd was born in London, the son of a Thomas Byrd (not Thomas Byrd of the Chapel Royal) about whom little is known. Byrd had two brothers, Symon'd and John, and four sisters. It is clear from a reference in the prefatory material in the Tallis/Byrd Cantiones of 1575 that Byrd was a pupil of Thomas Tallis, then the leading composing member of the Chapel Royal Choir. Byrd also worked in collaboration with two other Chapel Royal singing-men, John Sheppard and William Mundy, on one of his earliest compositions, a contribution to a joint setting of the alternatim psalm In exitu Israel composed for the procession to the font at the Paschal Vigil. As an item for the Sarum liturgy this was presumably composed near the end of the reign of Mary Tudor (1553–1558), whose Catholic beliefs impelled her to revive Sarum liturgical practices during her brief reign. In view of these contacts it is reasonable to speculate that Byrd was a Chapel Royal choirboy, though the surviving records do not name the choristers individually.

Early years[link]

A few other compositions by Byrd should probably be assigned to his teenage years. Apart from his contribution to In exitu Israel (Similes illis fiant a4), these include his setting of the Easter responsory Christus resurgens (a4) which was not published until 1605, but which as another Sarum liturgical unit could also have been composed during Mary's reign. Some of the hymns and antiphons for keyboard and for consort may also date from this period, though it is also possible that the consort pieces may have been composed in Lincoln for the musical training of choirboys.

Byrd's first known professional employment was as organist and choirmaster of Lincoln Cathedral, a post which he held from 25 March 1563. Residing at 6 Minster Yard Lincoln, he remained in post until 1572. His period at Lincoln was not entirely trouble-free, for on 19 November 1569 the Dean and Chapter cited him for ‘certain matters alleged against him’ as the result of which his salary was suspended. Since Puritanism was influential at Lincoln, it is possible that the allegations were connected with over-elaborate choral polyphony or organ playing. A second directive dated 29 November issued detailed instructions regarding Byrd's use of the organ in the liturgy. On 14 September 1568 Byrd married Julian Birley, a long-lasting and fruitful union which produced at least seven children.

The 1560s were also important formative years for Byrd the composer. The Short Service, an unpretentious setting of items for the Anglican Matins, Communion and Evensong services, which seems to designed to comply with the Protestant reformers’ demand for clear words and simple musical textures, may well have been composed during the Lincoln years. It is at any rate clear that Byrd was composing Anglican church music, for when he left Lincoln the Dean and Chapter continued to pay him at a reduced rate on condition that he would send the cathedral his compositions. Byrd had also taken serious strides with instrumental music. The seven In Nomine settings for consort (two a4 and five a5), at least one of the consort fantasias (Neighbour F1 a6) and a number of important keyboard works have been assigned to the Lincoln years. The latter include the Ground in Gamut (described as 'Mr Byrd's old ground') by his future pupil Thomas Tomkins, the A minor fantasia and probably the first of Byrd's great series of keyboard pavans and galliards, a composition which was transcribed by Byrd from an original for five-part consort. All these show Byrd gradually emerging as a major figure on the Elizabethan musical landscape.

Some sets of keyboard variations, such as The Hunt's Up and the imperfectly preserved set on Gypsies’ Round also seem to be early works. As we have seen, Byrd had begun setting Latin liturgical texts as a teenager, and he seems to have continued to do so at Lincoln. Two exceptional large-scale psalm motets, Ad Dominum cum tribularer (a8) and Domine quis habitabit (a9), are Byrd's contribution to a genre cultivated by Robert White and Robert Parsons. De lamentatione, another early work, is a contribution to the Elizabethan practice of setting groups of verses from the Lamentations of Jeremiah following the format of the Tenebrae lessons sung in the Catholic rite during the last three days of Holy Week, other contributors including Tallis, White, Parsley and the elder Ferrabosco. It is likely that this practice was an expression of Elizabethan Catholic nostalgia, as a number of the texts suggest.

The Chapel Royal[link]

Byrd obtained the prestigious post of Gentleman of the Chapel Royal in 1572 following the death of Robert Parsons, a gifted composer who drowned in the Trent near Newark on 25 January of that year. Almost from the outset Byrd is named as ‘organist’, which however was not a designated post but an occupation for any Chapel Royal member capable of filling it. This career move vastly increased Byrd's opportunities to widen his scope as a composer and also to make contacts at Court. Queen Elizabeth (1558–1603) was a moderate Protestant who eschewed the more extreme forms of Puritanism and retained a fondness for elaborate ritual, besides being a music lover and keyboard player herself. Byrd's output of Anglican church music (defined in the strictest sense as sacred music designed for performance in church) is surprisingly small, but it stretches the limits of elaboration then regarded as acceptable by some reforming Protestants who regarded highly wrought music as a distraction from the Word of God.

Cantiones quae ab argumento sacrae vocantur (1575)[link]

In 1575 Byrd and Tallis were jointly granted a patent for the printing of music and ruled music paper for 21 years, one of a number of patents issued by the Crown for the printing of books on various subjects. The two musicians used the services of the French Huguenot printer Thomas Vautrollier, who had settled in England and previously produced an edition of a collection of Lassus chansons in London (Receuil du mellange, 1570). The two monopolists took advantage of the patent to produce a grandiose joint publication under the title Cantiones que ab argumento sacrae vocantur consisting of 34 Latin motets dedicated to the Queen herself and accompanied by elaborate prefatory matter including poems in Latin elegiacs by the schoolmaster Richard Mulcaster and the young courtier Ferdinand Heybourne (aka Richardson). There are 17 motets each by Tallis and Byrd, one for each year of the Queen's reign.

Byrd's contribution to the Cantiones is highly variegated in character. The inclusion of Laudate pueri (a6) which proves to be an instrumental fantasia with words added after composition, is one sign that Byrd had some difficulty in assembling enough material for the collection. Diliges Dominum (a8), which may also originally have been untexted, is an eight-in-four retrograde canon of little musical interest. Also belonging to the more archaic stratum of motets is Libera me Domine (a5), a cantus firmus setting of the ninth responsory at Matins for the Office for the Dead, which takes its point of departure from the setting by Robert Parsons, while Miserere mihi (a6), a setting of a Compline antiphon often used by Tudor composers for didactic cantus firmus exercises, incorporates a four-in-two canon. Tribue Domine (a6) is a large-scale sectional composition setting a from a medieval collection of Meditationes which was commonly attributed to St Augustine,^[1] composed in a style which owes much to earlier Tudor settings of votive antiphons as a mosaic of full and semichoir passages. Byrd sets it in three sections, each beginning with a semichoir passage in archaic style.

Byrd's contribution to the Cantiones also includes compositions in a more forward-looking manner which point the way forwards to his motets of the 1580s. Some of them show the influence of the motets of Alfonso Ferrabosco I (1543–1588), a Bolognese musician who worked in the Tudor court at intervals between 1562 and 1578. Ferrabosco's motets provided direct models for Byrd's Emendemus in melius (a5), O lux beata Trinitas (a6), Domine secundum actum meum (a6) and Siderum rector (a5) as well as a more generalized paradigm for what Joseph Kerman has called Byrd's 'affective-imitative' style, a method of setting pathetic texts in extended paragraphs based on subjects employing curving lines in fluid rhythm and contrapuntal techniques which Byrd learnt from his study of Ferrabosco.

The Cantiones were a financial failure. In 1577 Byrd and Tallis were forced to petition Queen Elizabeth for financial help pleading that the publication had 'fallen oute to oure greate losse' and that Tallis was now 'verie aged'. They were subsequently granted the leasehold on various lands in East Anglia and the West Country for a period of 21 years.

Catholicism[link]

From the early 1570s onwards Byrd became increasingly involved with Catholicism, which, as the scholarship of the last half-century has demonstrated, became a major factor in his personal and creative life. As John Harley has shown, it is probable that Byrd's parental family were Protestants, though whether by deeply-felt conviction or nominal conformism is not clear. Byrd himself may have held Protestant beliefs in his youth, for a recently discovered fragment of a setting of an English translation of Luther's hymn Erhalt uns, Herr, bei Deinem Wort, which bears an attribution to 'Birde' includes the line 'From Turk and Pope defend us Lord'.^[2] However, from the 1570s onwards he is found associating with known Catholics, including Lord Thomas Paget, to whom he wrote a petitionary letter on behalf of an unnamed friend in 1573. Byrd's wife Julian was first cited for recusancy (refusing to attend Anglican services) at Harlington in Middlesex, where the family now lived, in 1577. Byrd himself appears in the recusancy lists from 1584.

His involvement with Catholicism took on a new dimension in the 1580s. Following Pius V's Papal Bull of 1570, which absolved Elizabeth's subjects from allegiance to her and effectively made her an outlaw in the eyes of the Catholic Church, Catholicism became increasingly identified with sedition in the eyes of the Tudor authorities. With the influx of missionary priests trained in the English Colleges in Douai and Rome from the 1570s onwards relations between the authorities and the Catholic community took a further turn for the worse. Byrd himself is found in the company of prominent Catholics. In 1583 he got into serious trouble because of his association with Lord Thomas Paget, who was suspected of involvement in the Throckmorton Plot, and for sending money to Catholics abroad. As a result of this Byrd's membership of the Chapel Royal was suspended for a time, restrictions were placed on his movements and his house was placed on the search list. In 1586 he attended a gathering at a country house in the company of Father Henry Garnett (later executed for complicity in the Gunpowder Plot) and the Catholic poet Robert Southwell.

Byrd's commitment to the Catholic cause found expression in his motets, of which he composed about 50 between 1575 and 1591. While the texts of the motets included by Byrd and Tallis in the 1575 Cantiones have a High Anglican doctrinal tone, scholars such as Joseph Kerman have detected a profound change of direction in the texts which Byrd set in the motets of the 1580s. In particular there is a persistent emphasis on themes such as the persecution of the chosen people (Domine praestolamur a5) the Babylonian or Egyptian captivity (Domine tu iurasti) and the long-awaited coming of deliverance (Laetentur caeli, Circumspice Jerusalem). This has led scholars from Kerman onwards to believe that Byrd was reinterpreting biblical and liturgical texts in a contemporary context and writing laments and petitions on behalf of the persecuted Catholic community, which seems to have adopted Byrd as a kind of 'house' composer. Some texts should probably be interpreted as warnings against spies (Vigilate, nescitis enim) or lying tongues (Quis est homo) or celebration of the memory of martyred priests (O quam gloriosum). Byrd's setting of the first four verses of Psalm 78 (Deus venerunt gentes) is widely believed to refer to the cruel execution of Fr Edmund Campion in 1581, an event that caused widespread revulsion on the Continent as well as in England. Finally, and perhaps most remarkably, Byrd's Quomodo cantabimus is the result of a motet exchange between Byrd and Philippe de Monte, who was director of music to the Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolf II, in Prague. In 1583 De Monte sent Byrd his setting of verses 1–4 of Psalm 136 (Super flumina Babylonis), including the pointed question ’How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?’ Byrd replied the following year with a setting of the defiant continuation, set, like de Monte's piece, in eight parts and incorporating a three-part canon by inversion.

Cantiones sacrae (1589 and 1591)[link]

Thirty-seven of Byrd's motets were published in two sets of Cantiones sacrae, which appeared in 1589 and 1591. Together with two sets of English songs, discussed below, these collections, dedicated to powerful Elizabethan lords (Edward Somerset, 4th Earl of Worcester and John Lumley, 1st Baron Lumley), probably formed part of Byrd's campaign to re-establish himself in Court circles after the reverses of the 1580s. They may also reflect the fact that Byrd's fellow monopolist Tallis and his printer Thomas Vautrollier had died, thus creating a more propitious climate for publishing ventures. Since many of the motet texts of the 1589 and 1591 sets are pathetic in tone, it is not surprising that many of them continue and develop the 'affective-imitative' vein found in some motets from the 1570s, though in a more concise and concentrated form. Domine praestolamur (1589) is a good example of this style, laid out in imitative paragraphs based on subjects which characteristically emphasize the expressive minor second and minor sixth, with continuations which subsequently break off and are heard separately (another technique which Byrd had learnt from his study of Ferrabosco). Byrd evolved a special 'cell' technique for setting the petitionary clauses such as ‘miserere mei’ or ‘libera nos Domine’ which form the focal point for a number of the texts. Particularly striking examples of these are the final section of Tribulatio proxima est (1589) and the multi-sectional Infelix ego (1591), a large-scale motet which takes its point of departure from Tribue Domine of 1575.

There are also a number of compositions which fail to conform to this stylistic pattern. They include three motets which employ the old-fashioned cantus firmus technique as well as the most famous item in the 1589 collection, Ne irascaris Domine the second part of which is closely modelled on Philip van Wilder's popular Aspice Domine. A few motets, especially in the 1591 set, abandon traditional motet style and resort to vivid word-painting which reflects the growing popularity of the madrigal (Haec dies, 1591). A famous passage from Thomas Morley's A Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke (1597) supports the view that the madrigal had superseded the motet in the favour of Catholic patrons, a fact which may explain why Byrd largely abandoned the composition of non-liturgical motets after 1591.

The English song-books of 1588 and 1589[link]

In 1588 and 1589 Byrd also published two collections of English songs. The first, Psalms, Sonnets and Songs of Sadness and Pietie (1588) consists mainly of adapted consort songs, which Byrd, probably guided by commercial instincts, had turned into vocal part-songs by adding words to the accompanying instrumental parts and labelling the original solo voice as ‘the first singing part’. The consort song, which was the most popular form of vernacular polyphony in England in the third quarter of the sixteenth century, was a solo song for a high voice (often sung by a boy) accompanied by a consort of four consort instruments (normally viols). As the title of Byrd's collection implies, consort songs varied widely in character. Many were settings of metrical psalms, in which the solo voice sings a melody in the manner of the numerous metrical psalm collections of the day (e.g. Sternhold and Hopkins Psalter, 1562) with each line prefigured by imitation in the accompanying instruments. Others are dramatic elegies, intended to be performed in the boy-plays which were popular in Tudor London.

Byrd's 1588 collection, which complicates the form as he inherited it from Robert Parsons, Richard Farrant and others, reflects this tradition. The ‘psalms’ section sets texts drawn from Sternhold's psalter of 1549 in the traditional manner, while the ‘sonnets and pastorals’ section employs lighter, more rapid motion with crotchet (quarter-note) pulse, and sometimes triple metre (Though Amaryllis dance in green). Poetically, the set (together with other evidence) reflects Byrd's involvement with the literary circle surrounding Sir Philip Sidney, whose influence at Court was at its height in the early 1580s. Byrd set three of the songs from Sidney's sonnet sequence Astrophel and Stella, as well as poems by other members of the Sidney circle, and also included two elegies on Sidney's death in the Battle of Zutphen in 1586. But the most popular item in the set was the Lullaby (Lullay lullaby) which blends the tradition of the dramatic lament with the cradle-songs found in some early boy-plays and medieval mystery plays. It long retained its popularity. In 1602 Byrd's patron Edward Somerset, 4th Earl of Worcester, discussing Court fashions in music, predicted that ‘in winter lullaby, an owld song of Mr Birde, wylbee more in request as I thinke’.

The Songs of Sundrie Natures (1589) contain sections in three, four, five and six parts, a format which follows the plan of many Tudor manuscript collections of household music and was probably intended to emulate the madrigal collection Musica transalpina, which had appeared in print the previous year. Byrd's set contains compositions in a wide variety of musical styles, reflecting the variegated character of the texts which he was setting. The three-part section includes settings of metrical versions of the seven penitential psalms, in an archaic style which reflects the influence of the psalm collections. Other items from the three-part and four-part section are in a lighter vein, employing a line-by-line imitative technique and a predominant crotchet pulse. The five-part section includes vocal part-songs which show the influence of the ‘adapted consort song’ style of the 1588 set but which seem to have been conceived as all-vocal part-songs. Byrd also bowed to tradition by setting two carols in the traditional form with alternating verses and burdens, and even included an anthem, a setting of the Easter prose Christ rising again which also circulated in church choir manuscripts with organ accompaniment.

My Ladye Nevells Booke[link]

The 1580s were also a productive decade for Byrd as a composer of instrumental music. On 11 September 1591 John Baldwin, a tenor lay-clerk at St George's Chapel, Windsor and later a colleague of Byrd in the Chapel Royal, completed the copying of My Ladye Nevells Booke, a collection of 42 of Byrd's keyboard pieces which was probably produced under Byrd's supervision and includes corrections which are thought to be in the composer's hand. Byrd would almost certainly have published it if the technical means had been available to do so. The dedicatee long remained unidentified, but John Harley's researches into the heraldic design on the fly-leaf have shown that she was Lady Elizabeth Neville, the third wife of Sir Henry Neville (Gentleman of the Privy Chamber) of Billingbear in Berkshire, who was a Justice of the Peace and a warden of Windsor Great Park.^[3] Under her third married name, Lady Periam, she also received the dedication of Thomas Morley's two-part canzonets of 1595. The contents show Byrd's mastery of a wide variety of keyboard forms, though liturgical compositions based on plainsong are not represented. The collection includes a series of ten pavans and galliards in the usual three-strain form with embellished repeats of each strain. (The only exception is the Ninth Pavan, which is a set of variations on the passamezzo antico bass)

There are indications that the sequence may be a chronological one, for the first pavan is labelled 'the first that ever hee made' in the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book and the Tenth Pavan, which is separated from the others, evidently became available at a late stage before the completion date. It is dedicated to William Petre (the son of Byrd's patron John Petre, 1st Baron Petre) who was only 15 years old in 1591 and could hardly have played it if it had been composed much earlier. The collection also includes two famous pieces of programme music. The Battle, which was apparently inspired by an unidentified skirmish in Elizabeth's Irish wars, is a sequence of movements bearing titles such as 'The marche to fight', 'The battells be joyned' and 'The Galliarde for the victorie'. Although not representing Byrd at his most profound, it achieved great popularity and is of incidental interest for the information which it gives on sixteenth-century English military calls. It is followed by The Barley Break (a mock-battle follows a real one), a light-hearted piece which follows the progress of a game of barley-break, a version of the game now known as ‘piggy in the middle’ played by three couples with a ball. My Ladye Nevells Booke also contains two monumental Grounds, and sets of keyboard variations of variegated character, notably the huge set on Walsingham and the popular variations on Sellinger's Round, Carman's Whistle and Lord Willoughby's Welcome Home. The fantasias and voluntaries in Nevell also cover a wide stylistic range, some being austerely contrapuntal (A voluntarie, no. 42)) and others lighter and more Italianate in tone. Like the five-and six-part consort fantasias, they sometimes feature a gradual increase in momentum after an imitative opening paragraph.

Consort music[link]

The period up to 1591 also saw important additions to Byrd's output of consort music, some of which has probably been lost. Two magnificent large-sale 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).

Stondon Massey[link]

In about 1594 Byrd's career entered a new phase. He was now in his early fifties, and as a far as the Chapel Royal is concerned he seems to have gone into semi-retirement. He moved with his family from Harlington to Stondon Massey, a small village near Chipping Ongar in Essex. His ownership of Stondon Place, where he lived for the rest of his life, was bitterly contested by Joanna Shelley, with whom he engaged in a protracted and unedifying legal dispute lasting about a decade and a half. The main reason for the move was apparently the proximity of Byrd's patron Sir John Petre (the son of the former Secretary of State Sir William Petre). A wealthy local landowner, Petre was a discreet Catholic who maintained two local manor houses, Ingatestone Hall and Thorndon Hall, the first of which still survives in a much-altered state. Petre held clandestine Mass celebrations, with music provided by his servants, which were subject to the unwelcome attention of spies and paid informers working for the Crown.

Byrd's acquaintance with the Petre family extended back at least to 1581 (as his surviving autograph letter of that year shows) and he spent two weeks at the Petre household over Christmas in 1589. He was ideally equipped to provide elaborate polyphony to adorn the music making at the Catholic country houses of the time. The continued adherence of Byrd and his family to Catholicism continued to cause him difficulties, though one surviving petition suggests that he was granted permission to practise his religion under licence during the reign of Elizabeth. Nevertheless, he regularly appeared in the quarterly local assizes to pay heavy fines for recusancy. No doubt his wide circle of friends and patrons among the nobility and gentry were able to ensure that he escaped more severe penalties.

Masses[link]

It was evidently at the behest of this circle of friends that Byrd now embarked on a grandiose programme to provide a cycle of liturgical music covering all the principal feasts of the Catholic Church calendar. The first stage in this undertaking comprised the three Ordinary of the Mass cycles (in four, three and five parts), which were published by Thomas East between 1592 and 1595. The editions are undated (dates can be established only by close bibliographic analysis)^[4] do not name the printer and consist of only one bifolium per partbook to aid concealment, all signs of secrecy: reminders that the possession of heterodox books was still highly dangerous. All three works contain retrospective features harking back to the earlier Tudor tradition of Mass settings which had lapsed after 1558, along with others which reflect Continental influence and the liturgical practices of the foreign-trained incoming missionary priests. Mass for Four Voices, or the Four-Part Mass, which according to Joseph Kerman, was probably the first to be composed, is partly modelled on John Taverner's Mean Mass, a highly regarded early Tudor setting which Byrd would probably have sung as a choirboy. Taverner's influence is particularly clear in the scale figures rising successively through a fifth, a sixth and a seventh in Byrd's setting of the Sanctus.

All three Mass cycles employ other early Tudor features, notably the mosaic of semichoir sections alternating with full sections in the four-part and five-part Masses, the use of a semichoir section to open the Gloria, Credo and Agnus Dei, and the head-motif which links the openings of all the movements of a cycle. However, all three cycles also include Kyries, a rare feature in Sarum Rite mass settings which usually omitted it because of the use of tropes on festal occasions in the Sarum Rite. The Kyrie of the three-part Mass is set in a simple litany-like style, but the other Kyrie settings employ dense imitative polyphony. A special feature of the four-part and five-part Masses is Byrd's treatment of the Agnus Dei, which employ the technique which Byrd had previously applied to the petitionary clauses from the motets of the 1589 and 1591 Cantiones sacrae. The final words dona nobis pacem ('grant us peace'), which are set to chains of anguished suspensions in the Four-Part Mass and expressive block homophony in the five-part setting almost certainly reflect the aspirations of the troubled Catholic community of the 1590s.

Gradualia[link]

The second stage in Byrd's programme of liturgical polyphony is formed by the Gradualia, two cycles of motets containing 109 items and published in 1605 and 1607. They are dedicated to two members of the Catholic nobility, Henry Howard, 1st Earl of Northampton and Byrd's own patron Sir John Petre, who had been elevated to the peerage in 1603 under the title Lord Petre of Writtle. The appearance of these two monumental collections of Catholic polyphony reflects the hopes which the recusant community must have harboured for an easier life under the new king James I, who came from a Catholic background himself. Addressing Petre (who is known to have lent him money to advance the printing of the collection), Byrd describes the contents of the 1607 set as ‘blooms collected in your own garden and rightfully due to you as tithes’, thus making explicit the fact that they had formed part of Catholic religious observances in the Petre household.

The greater part of the two collections consists of settings of the Proprium Missae for the major feasts of the church calendar, thus supplementing the Mass Ordinary cycles which Byrd had published in the 1590s. Normally, Byrd includes the Introit, the Gradual, the Alleluia (or Tract in Lent if needed), the Offertory and Communion. The feasts covered include the major feasts of the Virgin Mary (including the votive masses for the Virgin for the four seasons of the church year), All Saints and Corpus Christi (1605) followed by the feasts of the Temporale (Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, Ascension, Whitsun and Feast of Saints Peter and Paul (with additional items for St Peter's Chains and the Votive Mass of the Blessed Sacrament) in 1607. The verse of the introit is normally set as a semichoir section, returning to full choir scoring for the Gloria Patri. Similar treatment applies to the Gradual verse, which is normally attached to the opening Alleluia to form a single item. The liturgy requires repeated settings of the word ‘Alleluia’, and Byrd provides a wide variety of different settings forming brilliantly conceived miniature fantasias which are one of the most striking features of the two sets. The Alleluia verse, together with the closing Alleluia, normally form an item in themselves, while the Offertory and the Communion are set as they stand.

In the Roman liturgy there are many texts which appear repeatedly in different liturgical contexts. To avoid having to set the same text twice, Byrd often resorted to a cross-reference or ‘transfer’ system which allowed a single setting to be slotted into a different place in the liturgy. Unfortunately, this practice sometimes causes confusion, partly because normally no rubrics are printed to make the required transfer clear and partly because there are some errors which complicate matters still further. A good example of the transfer system in operation is provided by the first motet from the 1605 set (Suscepimus Deus a5) in which the text used for the Introit has to be reused in a shortened form for the Gradual. Byrd provides a cadential break at the cut-off point.

The 1605 set also contains a number of miscellaneous items which fall outside the liturgical scheme of the main body of the set. As Philip Brett has pointed out, most of the items from the four- and three-part sections were taken from the Primer (the English name for the Book of hours) thus falling within the sphere of private devotions rather than public worship. These include, inter alia, settings of the four Marian antiphons from the Roman Rite, four Marian hymns set a3, a version of the Litany, the gem-like setting of the Eucharistic hymn Ave verum Corpus, and the Turbarum voces from the St John Passion, as well as a series of miscellaneous items.

In stylistic terms the motets of the Gradualia form a sharp contrast to those of the Cantiones sacrae publications. The vast majority are shorter, with the discursive imitative paragraphs of the earlier motets giving place to double phrases in which the counterpoint, though intricate and concentrated, assumes a secondary level of importance. Long imitative paragraphs are the exception, often kept for final climactic sections in the minority of extended motets. The melodic writing often breaks into quaver (eighth-note) motion, tending to undermine the minim (half-note) pulse with surface detail. Some of the more festive items, especially in the 1607 set, feature vivid madrigalesque word-painting. The Marian hymns from the 1605 Gradualia are set in a light line-by-line imitative counterpoint with crotchet pulse which recalls the three-part English songs from Songs of sundrie natures (1589). For obvious reasons, the Gradualia never achieved the popularity of Byrd's earlier works. The 1607 set omits several texts, which were evidently too sensitive for publication in the light of the renewed anti-Catholic persecution which followed the failure of the Gunpowder Plot in 1605. A contemporary account which sheds light on the circulation of the music between Catholic country houses, refers to the arrest of a French Jesuit named De Noiriche, who was followed from an unidentified country house by spies, apprehended, searched and found to be carrying a copy of the 1605 set. Nevertheless, Byrd felt safe enough to reissue both sets with new title pages in 1610.

Anglican church music[link]

Byrd's staunch adherence to Catholicism did not prevent him from contributing memorably to the repertory of Anglican church music. Byrd's small output of church anthems ranges in style from relatively sober early examples (O Lord, make thy servant Elizabeth our queen (a6) and How long shall mine enemies (a5) ) to other, evidently late works such as Sing joyfully (a6) which is close in style to the English motets of Byrd's 1611 set, discussed below. Byrd also played a role in the emergence of the new verse anthem, which seems to have evolved in part from the practice of adding vocal refrains to consort songs. Byrd's four Anglican service settings range in style from the unpretentious Short Service, already discussed, to the magnificent so-called Great Service, a grandiose work which continues a tradition of opulent settings by Richard Farrant, William Mundy and Robert Parsons. Byrd's setting is on a massive scale, requiring five-part Decani and Cantoris groupings in antiphony, block homophony and five, six and eight-part counterpoint with verse (solo) sections for added variety. This service setting, which includes an organ part, must have been sung by the Chapel Royal Choir on major liturgical occasions in the early seventeenth century, though its limited circulation suggests that many other cathedral choirs must have found it beyond them. Nevertheless, the source material shows that it was sung in York Minster from c. 1618. The Great Service was in existence by 1606 (the last copying date entered in the earliest surviving manuscript source) and may date back as far as the 1590s.

Psalms, songs and sonnets (1611)[link]

Byrd's last collection of English songs was Psalms, Songs and Sonnets, published in 1611 (when Byrd was over 70) and dedicated to Francis Clifford, 4th Earl of Cumberland, who later also received the dedication of Thomas Campion's First Book of Songs in 1615. The layout of the set broadly follows the pattern of Byrd's 1589 set, being laid out in sections for three, four, five and six parts like its predecessor and embracing an even wider miscellany of styles (perhaps reflecting the influence of another Jacobean publication, Michael East's Third Set of Books (1610). Byrd's set includes two consort fantasias (a4 and a6) as well as eleven English motets, most of them setting prose texts from the Bible. These include some of his most famous compositions, notably Praise our Lord, all ye Gentiles (a6) This day Christ was born (a6) and Have mercy upon me (a6) which employs alternating phrases with verse and full scoring and also circulated as a church anthem. There are more carols set in verse and burden form as in the 1589 set as well as lighter three and four-part songs in Byrd's ‘sonnets and pastorals’ style. Some items are, however, more tinged with madrigalian influence than their counterparts in the earlier set, making clear that the short-lived madrigal vogue of the 1590s had not completely passed Byrd by.

Last works[link]

Byrd also contributed eight keyboard pieces to Parthenia (winter 1612–13), a collection of 21 keyboard pieces engraved by William Hole and containing music by Byrd, John Bull and Orlando Gibbons. It was issued in celebration of the forthcoming marriage of James I's daughter Princess Elizabeth to Frederick V, Elector Palatine, which took place on 14 February 1613. The three composers are nicely differentiated by seniority, with Byrd, Bull and Gibbons represented respectively by eight, seven and six items. Byrd's contribution includes the famous Earl of Salisbury Pavan, composed in memory of Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury, who had died on 24 May 1612, and its two accompanying galliards. Byrd's last published compositions are four English anthems printed in William Leighton's ' Teares or Lamentacions of a Sorrowfull Soule (1614).

Byrd remained in Stondon Massey until his death on 4 July 1623, which was noted in the Chapel Royal Check Book in a unique entry describing him as ‘a Father of Musick’. Despite repeated citations for recusancy and swingeing fines, he died a rich man, having rooms at the time of his death at the London home of the Earl of Worcester.

Reputation and reception[link]

Byrd's output of about 470 compositions amply justifies his reputation as one of the great masters of European Renaissance music. Perhaps his most impressive achievement as a composer was his ability to transform so many of the main musical forms of his day and stamp them with his own identity. Having grown up in an age in which Latin polyphony was largely confined to liturgical items for the Sarum rite, he assimilated and mastered the Continental motet form of his day, employing a highly personal synthesis of English and continental models. He virtually created the Tudor consort and keyboard fantasia, having only the most primitive models to follow. He also raised the consort song, the church anthem and the Anglican service setting to new heights. Finally, despite a general aversion to the madrigal, he succeeded in cultivating secular vocal music in an impressive variety of forms in his three sets of 1588, 1589 and 1611.

Byrd enjoyed a high reputation among English musicians, especially in the earlier stages of his career. Despite the failure of the Cantiones of 1575 some of his other collections sold well, while Elizabethan scribes such as the Oxford academic Robert Dow, the Windsor lay clerk John Baldwin and a school of scribes working for the Norfolk country gentleman Sir Edward Paston copied his music extensively. Dow included Latin distichs and quotations in praise of Byrd in his manuscript collection of music (GB Och 984-8) while Baldwin included a long doggerel poem in his commonplace book (GB Lbm Roy App 24 d 2) ranking Byrd at the head of the musicians of his day:

Yet let not straingers bragg, nor they these soe commende,

For they may now geve place and sett themselves behynde,

An Englishman, by name, William BIRDE for his skill

Which I shoulde heve sett first, for soe it was my will,

Whose greater skill and knowledge dothe excelle all at this time

And far to strange countries abrode his skill dothe shyne...

In 1597 Byrd's pupil Thomas Morley dedicated his treatise A Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke to Byrd in flattering terms, though he may have intended to counterbalance this in the main text by some sharply satirical references to a mysterious ‘Master Bold’. In The Compleat Gentleman (1622) Henry Peacham (1576–1643) praised Byrd in lavish terms as a composer of sacred music:

‘For Motets and musick of piety and devotion, as well as for the honour of our Nation, as the merit of the man, I prefer above all our Phoenix M[aster] William Byrd, whom in that kind, I know not whether any may equall, I am sure none excel, even by the judgement of France and Italy, who are very sparing in the commendation of strangers, in regard of that conceipt they hold of themselves. His Cantiones Sacrae, as also his Gradualia, are mere Angelicall and Divine; and being of himself naturally disposed to Gravity and Piety, his vein is not so much for leight Madrigals or Canzonets, yet his Virginella and some others in his first Set, cannot be mended by the best Italian of them all.’

Finally, and most intriguingly, it has been argued that a reference to ‘the bird of loudest lay’ in Shakespeare's mysterious allegorical poem The Phoenix and the Turtle may be to the composer. The poem as a whole has been interpreted as an elegy for the Catholic martyr Saint Anne Line, who was executed on 27 February 1601 for harbouring priests.

Although Byrd had a major reputation in England during his lifetime, his music was in many respects curiously uninfluential. Although his pupils included Peter Philips and Thomas Tomkins, both of whom were active as keyboard composers, the native virginal school to which he had contributed so much went into sharp decline with a number of deaths in the 1620s and never recovered. Thomas Morley, Byrd's other major composing pupil, devoted himself to the cultivation of the madrigal, a form in which Byrd himself took little interest. The native tradition of Latin music which Byrd had done so much to keep alive more or less died with him, while consort music underwent a huge change of character at the hands of a new generation of professional musicians at the Jacobean and Caroline courts. Ironically in view of Byrd's own religious beliefs, it was his Anglican church music which came closest to establishing a continuous tradition, at least in the sense that some of it continued to be performed in choral foundations after the Restoration and into the eighteenth century. Byrd's exceptionally long lifespan meant that he lived into an age in which many of the forms of vocal and instrumental music which he had made his own had lost their appeal to most musicians. Despite the efforts of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century antiquarians, the reversal of this judgement had to wait for the pioneering work of twentieth-century scholars from E. H. Fellowes onwards. In more recent times Joseph Kerman, Oliver Neighbour, Philip Brett, John Harley, Richard Turbet, Alan Brown, Kerry McCarthy, and others have made major contributions to increasing our understanding of Byrd's life and music. In 2010, The Cardinall's Musick under the direction of Andrew Carwood completed their recorded survey of Byrd's Latin church music. This series of thirteen recordings is the first time that all Byrd's Latin music is available on disc.

Veneration[link]

Byrd is honored together with John Merbecke and Thomas Tallis with a feast day on the liturgical calendar of the Episcopal Church (USA) on November 21.

Media[link]

	Allman From the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book. Performed by Ulrich Metzner on a harpsichord of the type used in the early 20th century
Problems listening to this file? See media help.

See also[link]

Saints portal

• List of compositions by William Byrd
• Orlando Gibbons
• John Bull (composer)

Notes[link]

1. ^ See K. McCarthy, ‘Byrd, Augustine and Tribue Domine’,Early Music 32 (20040 pp. 569–576
2. ^ O. Neighbour, 'Music Manuscripts of George Iliffe from Stanford Hall, Leicestershire, including a new ascription to Byrd', Music and Letters 88 (2007) pp. 420–435
3. ^ J Harley, 'My Lady Nevell Revealed', Music and Letters 86 (2005) pp. 1–15
4. ^ See P. Clulow, ‘Publication Dates for Byrd's Latin Masses’, Music and Letters 47 (1966) pp. 1–9

References[link]

•  Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Byrd, William". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 
• P. Brett, William Byrd and his Contemporaries (Berkeley, 2007)
• A. Brown and R. Turbet (gen. eds), Byrd Studies (Cambridge, 1992)
• E. H. Fellowes, William Byrd (rev. edn, London, 1948)
• John Harley, William Byrd: Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, (Aldershot, 1997)
• J. Kerman, The Masses and motets of William Byrd (London, 1981)
• J. Kerman, William Byrd, New Grove 2, 2001)
• O. Neighbour, The Consort and Keyboard Music of William Byrd London, 1978)
• R. Turbet, William Byrd, A Guide to Research (New York, 1987)
• Stainer & Bell. Ltd., (13.IX.2006) – Contains bio and list of works

Editions of Byrd's works[link]

• The Byrd Edition (gen. ed. P. Brett), Vols 1–17 (London, 1977–2004)
• A. Brown (ed.) William Byrd, Keyboard Music (Musica Britannica 27–28, London, 1971)

External links[link]

Wikisource has the text of the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia article William Byrd.

• Complete list of Byrd's works from stainer.co.uk (PDF)
• William Byrd at Find-A-Grave
• The keyboard music of William Byrd including recordings
• Free access to high-resolution images of manuscripts containing works by Byrd from Digital Image Archive of Medieval Music

Scores and recordings[link]

• Free scores by William Byrd at the International Music Score Library Project
• Free scores by William Byrd in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
• Free scores by William Byrd in the Werner Icking Music Archive (WIMA)
• William Byrd - Fantasia #2 - Viol Consort on YouTube
• Free recordings of Madrigals, Latin Church Music
• Free recordings of Byrd's Ave verum corpus
• Free recordings of Mass for four voices and some Christmas motets
• Motet Ave Verum Corpus as interactive hypermedia at the BinAural Collaborative Hypertext
• Kunst der Fuge: William Byrd – Free MIDI files
• William Byrd and Thomas Tallis, In Chains of Gold. Dunedin Consort, DCD34008
• Ceremony & Devotion - Music for the Tudors Harry Christophers, The Sixteen (CORO)
• Complete Byrd Edition Andrew Carwood, The Cardinall's Musick (ASV / Hyperion)

Christina Aguilera
Aguilera attending the launch of the Montblanc John Lennon edition in September 2010.
Background information
Birth name	Christina María Aguilera
Born	(1980-12-18) December 18, 1980 (age 31) Staten Island, New York, U.S.
Origin	Wexford, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Genres	Pop, R&B, soul, dance-pop[1]
Occupations	Singer-songwriter,[2][3][4] record producer, dancer, television personality,[5] actress
Instruments	Vocals
Years active	1993–present
Labels	RCA
Website	christinaaguilera.com

Christina María Aguilera (born December 18, 1980) is an American recording artist and actress. Aguilera first appeared on national television in 1990 as a contestant on the Star Search program, and went on to star in Disney Channel's television series The Mickey Mouse Club from 1993 to 1994. Aguilera signed to RCA Records after recording "Reflection",^[6] the theme song for the animated film Mulan (1998).

In 1999, Aguilera came to prominence following her debut album Christina Aguilera, which was a commercial success spawning three number one singles on the Billboard Hot 100—"Genie in a Bottle", "What a Girl Wants", and "Come On Over Baby (All I Want Is You)."^[7] Her sophomore and her debut Latin-pop album, Mi Reflejo (2000), a Christmas third studio album, My Kind of Christmas (2000), and several collaborations followed which garnered Aguilera worldwide success, though she was displeased with her lack of input in her music and image.^[8] After parting from her management, Aguilera took creative control over her fourth studio album, Stripped (2002).^[9] The album's second single, "Beautiful", was a commercial success and helped the album's commercial performance amidst controversy over Aguilera's image.^[10][11][12] Aguilera followed up Stripped with the soul, jazz and blues inspired, Back to Basics (2006), released to positive critical acclaim.^[13] The album produced three singles "Ain't No Other Man", "Hurt" and "Candyman". Four years later Aguilera released her sixth studio album, Bionic (2010), which incorporated aspects of R&B, electropop, and synthpop and was met with mixed reviews and low sales.^{[14][15][16][17]} Aguilera's seventh studio album is set to be released in 2012.

Aside from being known for her vocal ability, music videos and image, musically, she includes themes of dealing with public scrutiny, her childhood, and female empowerment in her music.^[18] Apart from her work in music, she has also dedicated much of her time as a philanthropist for charities, human rights and world issues which include her work as a UN ambassador for the World Food Programme.^[19][20] She made her feature film debut in the musical Burlesque (2010), earning Aguilera a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song. Aguilera's work has earned her numerous awards and accolades, including a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, four Grammy Awards and one Latin Grammy Award, amongst seventeen and three nominations respectively. Rolling Stone ranked her number fifty-eight on their list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time, ranking as the youngest and only artist on the list under the age of thirty.^[21] She was ranked the 20th Artist of the 2000–09 decade by Billboard^[22] and is the second top selling single artist of the 2000s behind Madonna.^[23] Aguilera's albums sales are estimated at over 50 million units worldwide, making her one of the best-selling music artists of all time.^[24][25] Aguilera is currently a coach and judge on The Voice.

Life and career[link]

1980–98: Early life and career beginnings[link]

Aguilera was born in Staten Island, New York, to Fausto Wagner Xavier Aguilera, a sergeant in the US Army at the time, and Shelly Loraine (née Fidler), a Spanish teacher. Aguilera's father was born in Guayaquil, Ecuador^[26] and her mother, who is American, is of German, Irish, Welsh, and Dutch ancestry.^[27] Her father was stationed at Earnest Harmon Air Force Base in Stephenville, Newfoundland and Labrador and Japan. Aguilera lived with both her father and mother, up until their divorce when she was seven years old. Aguilera then lived with her mother, and her younger sister Rachel, at her grandmother's home in Rochester, Pennsylvania, a town outside Pittsburgh. According to both Aguilera and her mother, her father was very controlling, as well as physically and emotionally abusive. In an interview with Rolling Stone Aguilera revealed, "there was so much domestic violence going on when I grew up with my dad travelling in the military. I think the reason that my drive was so strong and I was so passionate about music was because I grew up in an environment of domestic violence."^[28] She later sang about her difficult childhood in the songs "I'm OK" on Stripped, and "Oh Mother" on Back to Basics. Even though he has made several attempts to reconnect with her, Aguilera ruled out any chance of a reunion.^[29] Since then, her mother has married a paramedic named Jim Kearns, and has changed her name.^[30]

As a child, Aguilera aspired to be a singer. She was known locally as "the little girl with the big voice",^[29] singing in local talent shows and competitions. She attended Rochester Area School District, Marshall Middle School near Wexford and North Allegheny Intermediate High School. On March 15, 1990, she appeared on Star Search singing "A Sunday Kind of Love", but lost the competition at number 2. Soon after losing on Star Search, she returned home and appeared on Pittsburgh's KDKA-TV's Wake Up With Larry Richert to perform the same song. Throughout her youth in Pittsburgh, Aguilera sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" before Pittsburgh Penguins hockey, Pittsburgh Steelers football and Pittsburgh Pirates baseball games, including during the 1992 Stanley Cup Finals.^[31] Her talent was kept a secret to avoid bullying of other children. Following her television appearances Aguilera experienced resentment and bullying including an incident in which her peers slashed the tires on her family's car.^[32] Following several incidents Aguilera was later home schooled.^[29] Aguilera recalls, "doing what I did and maybe being a little smaller, I was definitely picked on and bullied for the attention that I got. It was definitely unwanted attention and there was a lot of unfairness about it."^[33]

In 1991, Aguilera auditioned for a role on The Mickey Mouse Club; however, she did not meet the age requirements. Two years later, she joined the cast, performing musical numbers and sketch comedy, until the show's cancellation in 1994.^[34] Her co-stars included Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears, Ryan Gosling and Keri Russell where they nicknamed her "the Diva"^[35] for her performance style and voice. At the age of fourteen, Aguilera recorded her first song, "All I Wanna Do", a hit duet with Japanese singer Keizo Nakanishi.^[36] In 1997, she represented the United States at the international Golden Stag Festival with a two-song set.^[37] Aguilera entered talent contests on "teen night" at the Pegasus Lounge, a gay and lesbian nightclub in Pittsburgh,^[38] and later at Lilith Fair.^[39] In 1998, Aguilera sent in a demo of her singing Whitney Houston's "Run to You" to Disney who were looking for a singer to record the song "Reflection" for their animated feature film Mulan (1998).^[40] The demo caught the attention of producer and label executive Ron Fair who would later mentor her throughout her career and led to Aguilera earning a contract with RCA Records the same week.^[9] "Reflection" peaked within the top twenty on the Adult Contemporary Singles Chart, and it was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song.

[edit] 1999–01: Christina Aguilera, Mi Reflejo and new management

Under the exclusive representation of Steve Kurtz, Aguilera's self-titled debut album Christina Aguilera was released on August 24, 1999. It reached the top of the Billboard 200 and Canadian album charts, shipping eight million copies in the US^[41] and over seventeen million copies worldwide.^[42] The album is also included in the Top 100 Albums of All Time list of The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) based on US sales.^[43] Released during the teen pop era of 1999 the album was well received by several critics, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic writes that Aguilera's debut "remains firmly within the teen-oriented dance-pop genre, but done right." Concluding that the album is "lightweight in the best possible sense – breezy, fun, engaging, and enjoyable on each repeated listen. Out of the deluge of teen-pop albums in 1999, this feels like the best of the lot."^[44] Her debut single, "Genie in a Bottle" was an instant hit reaching No.1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and in several countries worldwide. Her follow-up singles "What a Girl Wants" and "Come On Over Baby (All I Want Is You)" topped the Hot 100 as well during 1999 and 2000 while "I Turn to You" reached number three. She is one of the few artists to have multiple No.1 singles from a debut album in Billboard's history.^[45] She made a cameo appearance on an episode of Beverly Hills, 90210, performed on MTV's New Year's Special as MTV's first artist of the millennium, and the Super Bowl XXXIV halftime show. Aguilera wanted to display the range and audacity in her voice during the promotion of the album, and performed acoustic sets and appeared on television shows accompanied only by a piano. At the 42nd Grammy Awards Aguilera received a Best Female Pop Vocal Performance Grammy nomination for "Genie in a Bottle" and despite earlier predictions, she won the Grammy Award for Best New Artist.^[46]

In 2000, Aguilera began recording her first Spanish-language album with producer Rudy Pérez in Miami.^[47][48] Later in 2000, Aguilera, first emphasized her Latin heritage by releasing her first Spanish album, Mi Reflejo on September 12, 2000. This album contained Spanish versions of songs from her English debut as well as new Spanish tracks. Though some criticized Aguilera for trying to cash in on the Latin music boom at the time. According to Pérez, Aguilera was only semi-fluent, while recording. She understood the language, because she has grown up with her father, who is a native of Ecuador. He added "Her Latin roots are undeniable".^[47] The album peaked at number twenty-seven on the Billboard 200 and went No.1 on the Billboard Latin charts for a record 20 weeks. In 2001, it won Aguilera a Latin Grammy Award for Best Female Pop Vocal Album. The album was later certified 6× Platinum (Latin field) in the US Aguilera won the World Music Award and Billboard award as the best selling Latin artist that year. Aguilera also released a Christmas album, My Kind of Christmas, on October 24, 2000 and performed "The Christmas Song" at the White House that year.^[41] The album's only single, "The Christmas Song" made Aguilera one of three artists to take the song into the top twenty on the Billboard Hot 100.^[49] The single and My Kind of Christmas were both certified Platinum in the US^[50][51] Aguilera was Billboard's top female artist for 2000.^[52]

Aguilera's first concert tour, Christina Aguilera: In Concert (also known as "Sears & Levis Tour ") began in the summer of 2000 in the US and ended early 2001 where she toured South America and Asia. A concert special aired on ABC titled My Reflection which was released to DVD and certified Gold in the US.^[53] Aguilera was rumored to have dated MTV VJ Carson Daly.^[54] Rumors of their relationship were fueled after the release of Eminem's song, "The Real Slim Shady" in which he also insinuated a romance between her and rocker Fred Durst. Aguilera responded saying the lyrics were "disgusting, offensive and, above all, not true."^[55] Their feud ended two years later backstage at the Video Music Awards after Aguilera presented the rapper an award onstage.^[56] She dated Puerto Rican dancer Jorge Santos. Santos appeared on her tour and music videos throughout 2000. They dated for nearly two years until the relationship ended on September 11, 2001.^[57] He remained her dancer well into 2002.^[58]

Ricky Martin asked Aguilera to duet with him on the track "Nobody Wants to Be Lonely" from his album Sound Loaded; released in 2001 as the album's second single. The single reached No.1 on the World Chart and top ten in several countries. In 2001, Aguilera, Lil' Kim, Mýa, and Pink were chosen to remake Labelle's 1975 single "Lady Marmalade" for the film Moulin Rouge! and its soundtrack. The song peaked at No.1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for five weeks and was the most successful airplay-only single in history.^[59] It also reached number one in eleven other countries and earned all four performers a Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals. Aguilera's appearance in the music video was compared to that of Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider.^[60] The video won two MTV Video Music Awards including Video of the Year in 2001, where Aguilera accepted the award saying, "I guess the big hair paid off."^[61]

That same year, the single "Just Be Free" emerged into record stores which was one of the demos Aguilera recorded when she was around fifteen years old. When RCA Records discovered the single, they advised fans not to purchase it.^[62] Months later, Warlock Records was set to release Just Be Free, an album which contains the demo tracks. Aguilera filed a breach of contract and unfair competition suit against Warlock and the album's producers to block the release.^[63] Instead, the two parties came to a settlement to release the album. Aguilera lent out her name, likeness and image for an unspecified amount of damages. Many of the details of the lawsuit remain confidential. When the album was released in August 2001, it had a photograph of Aguilera when she was fifteen years old.^[64]

Although Aguilera's debut album was commercially successful, she was dissatisfied with the music and image her management had created for her. Aguilera was marketed as a bubblegum pop singer because of the genre's upward financial trend.^[65] She mentioned plans of her next album to have much more depth, both musically and lyrically.^[66] Aguilera's views of Steve Kurtz's influence in matters of the singer's creative direction, the role of being her exclusive personal manager and overscheduling had in part caused her to seek legal means of terminating their management contract. In October 2000, Aguilera filed a breach of fiduciary duty lawsuit against her manager Kurtz for improper, undue and inappropriate influence over her professional activities, as well as fraud. According to legal documents, Kurtz did not protect her rights and interests. Instead, he took action that was for his own interest, at the cost of hers. She petitioned the California State Labor Commission to nullify the contract. Aguilera revealed while recording her then upcoming album, "I was being overworked. You find out that someone you thought was a friend is stealing money behind your back, and it's heartbreaking. I put faith in the people around me, and unfortunately, it bit me in the butt."^[67] After terminating Kurtz's services, Irving Azoff was hired as her new manager.

[edit] 2002–05: New image, Stripped and marriage

On October 26, 2002, Aguilera's fourth studio album, Stripped, was released. The album sold more than 330,000 copies in the first week and peaked at number two on the Billboard 200. Unlike her previous work, the album showcased Aguilera's raunchier side.^[68] The majority of Stripped was co-written by Aguilera (who had recently signed a global music publishing contract with BMG Music Publishing), and was influenced by many different subjects and music styles, including contemporary R&B, gospel, soul, balladry, pop rock, and hip hop.^[69] The majority of the album was produced by Scott Storch and singer-songwriter Linda Perry who produced her more personal records. Rockwilder and singer Alicia Keys also contributed a track each. Upon initial release, the album was very well received by critics, although Aguilera's vocals were overlooked as she began to cultivate a more sexually provocative image.^[70] After the release of the album, she took part in photoshoots for magazines, many of these photographs featured her nude or semi-nude. Her cover for Rolling Stone,^[71] featured the singer only wearing boots and a well-placed electric guitar. It was during this time Aguilera referred to herself as "Xtina", even getting a tattoo of her nickname on the back of her neck and several piercings.^[72]

Aguilera performing during during Stripped Live... on Tour in 2003

Initially, the raunchy image had a negative effect on Aguilera in the US, especially after the release of her controversial "Dirrty" music video.^[11] She denied that this change was a matter of publicity, claiming that the image better reflected her true personality than did the image she cultivated back in 1999. Aguilera defended the video stating it was about power and control adding, "I'm also at the forefront. I'm in the power position, in complete command of everything around me."^[41] While the video for "Dirrty" became very popular on MTV, it disappointed on the US singles chart. However, the single was a hit worldwide, reaching No.1 in the UK and Ireland. The second single, "Beautiful" received critical praise. The classically influenced ballad reached number one in several countries and peaked at No.2 in the US. "Beautiful" earned Aguilera the Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. Three more singles ("Fighter", "Can't Hold Us Down" featuring Lil' Kim, "The Voice Within") were released in the following two years and were hits that helped the album stay on the charts for the next two years. Stripped stayed on the U.S. and UK album charts well into 2004, and went on to be certified four-times platinum in the US with over thirteen million copies sold worldwide.^[73] It appeared at number ten on Billboard's year-end album chart and Aguilera was the top female artist for 2003.^[74] Kelly Clarkson's second single "Miss Independent" was co-written by Aguilera, having been half-finished for Stripped.

Aguilera performing during Stripped Live... on Tour in 2003

Aguilera joined Justin Timberlake that June on the final leg of his international Justified tour, held in the US. This portion of the tour became a co-headliner called the Justified/Stripped Tour. In August, an overhead lighting grid collapsed from the ceiling of the Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, New Jersey, causing major damage to the sound and video equipment below. Because the collapse occurred hours before the show, only a few stagehands were injured, but a few shows were cancelled or postponed. In the fourth quarter of that year, Aguilera continued to tour internationally without Timberlake, and changed the name of the tour to the Stripped World Tour. She also dyed her hair black. It was one of the top-grossing tours of that year, and sold out most of its venues. Rolling Stone readers named it the best tour of the year.^[75] That same year she hosted the 2003 MTV Europe Music Awards and was a special guest performer with the Pussycat Dolls' dance troupe performing at the Roxy Theatre and Viper Room in Los Angeles. She also appeared on a Maxim spread alongside them, her second Maxim cover that year set record sales for the issue making it the top selling issue to date. By the end of the year she topped the annual Hot 100 list saying, "we had fun working with certain clothes, or the lack thereof."^[76][77][78]

Aguilera's first DVD live-recording from a concert tour, Stripped Live in the U.K., was released in November 2004. In light of the tour's success, another U.S. tour was scheduled to begin in mid-2004 with a new theme. The tour however was scrapped because of the vocal cord injuries Aguilera suffered shortly before the tour's opening date. In a tribute to Madonna's performance at the inaugural MTV Video Music Awards, Aguilera performed a kiss with the singer-actress at the 2003 edition of the ceremony in August. The incident occurred during the opening performance of Madonna's songs "Like a Virgin" and "Hollywood" with fellow popstar Britney Spears.^[41] Also in 2004, she hosted a Saturday Night Live episode which included a Sex & The City skit where she portrayed Samantha Jones revealing to everyone she was a man the entire time.^[79]

Aguilera later decided to embrace a more mature image; this move was met with more praise than criticism, with articles using punch lines such as "From Crass to Class."^[80] She eventually dyed her hair cherry blonde and recorded a jingle, "Hello", for a Mercedes-Benz ad. Shortly after, she dyed her hair flaxen blonde and cut it short, and took on a Marilyn Monroe look; she is one of the main proponents (along with Dita Von Teese, Gwen Stefani, and Ashley Judd) in bringing back the 1920s–1940s Hollywood glamour look.^[81][82] In late summer 2004, Aguilera released two singles. The first, "Car Wash", was a remake of the Rose Royce disco song recorded as a collaboration with rapper Missy Elliott for the soundtrack to the film Shark Tale. She voiced a small singing part in the film playing a Rastafarian jellyfish in the film's closing musical number. The second song was also a collaboration, but this time as a second single from one of Nelly's double-release albums, Sweat, titled "Tilt Ya Head Back". Both singles failed commercially in the US, but did considerably better in other parts of the world. Aguilera collaborated with jazz artist Herbie Hancock on a cover of Leon Russell's "A Song for You" recorded for Hancock's album Possibilities, released in August 2005. Aguilera and Hancock were later nominated for the Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals. She helped open the 50th Anniversary for Disneyland performing "When You Wish upon a Star", and she also collaborated with Andrea Bocelli on the song "Somos Novios" for his album Amore. Aguilera began dating music marketing executive Jordan Bratman in 2002. Their engagement was announced in February 2005,^[83] and they married on November 19, 2005, in a Napa Valley estate.^[84]

[edit] 2006–09: Back to Basics, motherhood and greatest hits album

Aguilera performing during the Sanremo Story festival in 2006

Aguilera's fifth studio album, Back to Basics was released August 15, 2006. The album debuted at No.1 in the US, the UK and eleven other countries. Aguilera described the double CD as "a throwback to the 20s, 30s, and 40s-style jazz, blues, and feel-good soul music, but with a modern twist."^[85] The album received generally positive reviews, although many critics commented on the album's length saying, "At one disc, this would have been nothing short of masterful."^[86] A review in AllMusic adds, "Back to Basics also makes clear that Stripped was a necessary artistic move for Christina: she needed to get that out of her system in order to create her own style, one that is self-consciously stylized, stylish, and sexy."^[87] The critically acclaimed lead single "Ain't No Other Man" was a substantial success, reaching No. 2 on the World Chart, No.6 in the US, and No.2 in the UK. Producers on the album included DJ Premier, Kwamé, Linda Perry, and Mark Ronson. The follow-up singles did very well in different regions, "Hurt" in Europe and "Candyman" in the Pacific. She co-directed both music videos, the former with Floria Sigismondi who directed her "Fighter" video, and the latter, "Candyman", with director/photographer Matthew Rolston which was inspired by The Andrews Sisters.^[88] Back to Basics has sold 4.5 million units worldwide,^[89] with over 1.7 million sold in the US.^[90]

In late 2006, Aguilera collaborated with Sean "Diddy" Combs on a track, titled "Tell Me", from his album Press Play. She also began the Back to Basics Tour in Europe^[91] followed by a 41-date North American tour in early 2007.^[92] After this, she toured Asia and Australia, where it was supposed to end on August 3, however she canceled her dates in Melbourne and her final two in Auckland due to an illness.^[93] Her extravagant arena tour included cabaret, three-ring circus and juke joint sets and 10 piece costumes designed by Roberto Cavalli.^[94] She released her concert DVD Back to Basics: Live and Down Under the following year. The tour grossed nearly 50 million by the end of the year in North America and an additional 40 million worldwide in her Europe and Australia dates, grossing almost 90 million by the end of the tour.^[95][96] It was the most successful US tour by a female in 2007.^[97]

At the 49th Grammy Awards, Aguilera again won the Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for "Ain't No Other Man". She made a noteworthy performance at the ceremony paying tribute to James Brown with her rendition of his song "It's a Man's Man's Man's World".^[98] In January 2007, she was named the 19th richest woman in entertainment by Forbes, with a net worth of US$60 million.^[99] Aguilera performed "Steppin' Out With My Baby" with Tony Bennett on his NBC special Tony Bennett: An American Classic and on Saturday Night Live. They performed at the 59th Primetime Emmy Awards where both specials received Emmys. "Steppin' Out" was nominated for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards.

Aguilera confirmed she was pregnant on November 4, 2007,^[100] though Paris Hilton accidentally revealed her pregnancy several weeks prior during a party Aguilera hosted.^[101] She gave birth to her son, Max Liron Bratman, in Los Angeles on January 12, 2008 and held a bris for him with Bratman, who is of Jewish descent, where the baby was circumcised in accordance with Jewish practice.^[102] Aguilera was reportedly paid $1.5 million by People for her son's baby pictures—the sixth most expensive celebrity baby photos ever taken.^[103]

In 2008, Aguilera appeared in the Martin Scorsese documentary Shine a Light which chronicles a two day Rolling Stones concert in New York City's Beacon Theatre. The film features Aguilera performing "Live With Me" alongside Mick Jagger. Shine a Light premiered at the Berlin Film Festival and was released worldwide on April 4, 2008. She also had brief cameo in the comedy film Get Him to the Greek,^[104] and appeared as a guest judge on the sixth season of Project Runway on Lifetime Television. She and designer Bob Mackie were the inspiration for the challenge in which they had to design a stage outfit for Aguilera. To commemorate Aguilera's ten years in the music industry, RCA Records released, Keeps Gettin' Better: A Decade of Hits on November 11, 2008, exclusively at Target stores in the US. The greatest hits included her first three number one singles, and other songs released from her previous three albums. "Lady Marmalade" and several Spanish singles from Mi Reflejo were included in the worldwide releases. The album's only single, "Keeps Gettin' Better", was premiered at the 2008 MTV Video Music Awards, which debuted and peaked at No.7 on the Billboard Hot 100, her highest debut on the chart. Following the greatest hits, Aguilera took over a year hiatus in 2009 working on her then upcoming album and film. She was one of Billboard's Top 20 Artists of the Decade in their year-end charts.^[105]

[edit] 2010–11: Bionic, Burlesque and The Voice

Aguilera's sixth studio album Bionic was released on June 8, 2010. The album's producers included Tricky Stewart, Samuel Dixon, Polow da Don, Le Tigre, Switch, Ester Dean, songwriters Sam Endicott, Sia Furler, Claude Kelly, Linda Perry and collaborations with M.I.A., Santigold, Nicki Minaj, and Peaches. Bionic's material consisted of many mainstream and pop records along with electronic and dance music. Two of the album's three singles, "Not Myself Tonight" and "You Lost Me" peaked at No.1 on the Billboard Hot Dance Club Play Charts^[106] but were unsuccessful elsewhere. "Woohoo", featuring rapper Nicki Minaj, was also released as the album's second single. The album was released to mixed reviews from music critics,^[107][15] with Jon Pareles of The New York Times writing that the singer's new music direction "makes her sound as peer-pressured as a pop singer can be."^[108] Allison Stewart of The Washington Post described the album as being "noisy, robotic and overstuffed" adding that the disc's "greatest disappointments" is its "virtual abandonment" of Aguilera's voice.^[109] She concluded that Aguilera attempts "to do it all," which was to try to "revel in her newfound domesticity, to wrest her crown from Gaga and to reestablish her sex kitten bona fides."^[109] Sales of Bionic were underwhelming in the US compared to her previous releases selling 110,000 copies in its first week landing at No.3.^[110][111] It has since sold 295,000 copies in the US.^[112] Shortly after the album's release, further promotion ended and a scheduled summer tour for the album was cancelled due to "inadequate rehearsal time".^[113] "You Lost Me" was her first single to not chart the Hot 100 while Bionic was her first English studio album not to receive a Grammy nomination. Aguilera later responded in an interview saying, "I was really proud of that record. I think there was a lot of promotion issues, coming from a standpoint of how everything resulted. Nothing is ever a setback. If anything, it just motivates you for what’s next."^[114]

Aguilera announced that she and Bratman had separated, saying in a statement, "Although Jordan and I are separated, our commitment to our son Max remains as strong as ever."^[115][116] Aguilera filed for divorce from Bratman on October 14, 2010, seeking joint legal and physical custody of their son, and specifying September 11, 2010, as the date of separation.^[117][118] They later reached a settlement agreement and custody deal, details of their agreement were private.^[119] Their divorce was finalized on April 15, 2011.^[120] The following month, Aguilera appeared as herself on the Entourage season seven finale as a client/friend of Ari Gold.^[121] On November 15, 2010, Aguilera received a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.^[122]

Aguilera's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which she received in 2010

In November 2010, Aguilera appeared in her first feature film, the musical Burlesque. She portrayed a small town girl, Ali Rose, who finds love and success in a Los Angeles neo-burlesque club.^[123] Aguilera performed eight of the musical numbers on the film's soundtrack released on November 22, 2010, and co-wrote a number of the tracks working with producers and writers including Tricky Stewart, Sia Furler, Samuel Dixon, Linda Perry, Claude Kelly, Danja, and Ron Fair. The remaining two tracks were sung by Cher, who co-starred alongside Aguilera. The soundtrack debuted in the top 20 in the US and was certified Gold.^[124][125] The film was written and directed by Steve Antin who wrote the part of Ali specifically with Aguilera in mind.^[126] Aguilera's co-stars also included Cam Gigandet, Eric Dane, Kristen Bell and Stanley Tucci. Several critics praised Aguilera's performance. A review in TIME states, "Aguilera might not be to your taste, or mine, but in terms of sheer power, she's impressive. If Ali were real, she'd have already been discovered on American Idol."^[127] While Variety wrote, "Aguilera, while undeniably entertaining when her character is onstage, cannot spin the slight backstory into anything resembling a full-blooded person."^[128] Though Burlesque was released to mixed reviews from critics,^[129][130] the film received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Picture – Musical or Comedy and earned Aguilera, writer/producer Sia Furler and Samuel Dixon, a nomination for Best Original Song for the track "Bound to You". The soundtrack also earned Aguilera a Grammy nomination for Best Compilation Soundtrack. Burlesque has grossed over $90 million worldwide.^[131]

Following the release of Burlesque, Aguilera collaborated with rapper T.I. on the track, "Castle Walls" from his album No Mercy. Aguilera performed the U.S. national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner", during the Super Bowl XLV on February 6, 2011, and created embarrassment when she omitted a line of the anthem and messed up the song's lyrics.^[132] She later apologized, telling CNN that "I got so caught up in the moment of the song that I lost my place. I can only hope that everyone could feel my love for this country and that the true spirit of its anthem still came through."^[133] The following week, Aguilera, alongside Jennifer Hudson, Martina McBride, Yolanda Adams, and Florence Welch opened the 53rd Grammy Awards paying tribute to Aretha Franklin.

Aguilera began dating musician and production assistant, Matt Rutler whom she met during the filming of Burlesque. Her personal life was the subject of scrutiny;^[19] and reports over out of control behavior, excessive drinking,^[134][135] and a reported confrontation with her co-star Julianne Hough.^[136][137] On March 1, 2011, Aguilera was arrested for public intoxication in West Hollywood as her boyfriend was arrested for DWI.^[138] She was later released on bail and no charges were filed.^[139][140] Although the L.A. Sheriff's office stated Aguilera's mug shot would not be released to the public, E! News obtained the mug shot which circulated social networks and the media shortly after her release.^[141] Rutler's DWI charge was dismissed due to insufficient evidence, after his BAC was determined as below the legal limit.^[142]

Aguilera signed to be a judge on The Voice, which debuted on NBC in April 2011. Aguilera, alongside other musicians Adam Levine, Blake Shelton and Cee Lo Green serve as judges and coaches, with Carson Daly as the show's host. The show's first episode was well-received, and delivered the strongest ratings for a series premiere on a major network since Undercover Boss debuted after the Super Bowl in February 2010.^[143][144] The show's first season was a ratings success for NBC following its debut.^[145][146] Aguilera performed "Moves Like Jagger" on The Voice – the single with Maroon 5 on which she is featured, from their album Hands All Over. The song was an instant hit reaching No.2 in the UK, No.1 on the World Chart and earned Aguilera her fifth No.1 single on the Billboard Hot 100, a decade after her last No.1, "Lady Marmalade".^[147] The single became the first 4 million-seller for both artists and marks the first time two former Best New Artist Grammy Award winners have collaborated on a Hot 100 hit.^[49] "Moves Like Jagger" was nominated for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance at the Grammy Awards and has since sold over 7 million copies worldwide, establishing itself among the best-selling singles of all time.^[148].

2012–present: Seventh studio album and current projects[link]

The second season of The Voice premiered following Super Bowl XLVI. Aguilera performed a cover of "At Last" by Etta James at James' funeral on January 28, 2012.^[149][150] Aguilera recorded her first Spanish-language track in over a decade titled "Casa de Mi Padre" which was released as the title song for the soundtrack and film of the same name.^[151] In regards to her upcoming album, Aguilera stated that she is recording a new studio album in an interview with Live with Regis and Kelly.^[152] No official date has been announced but the album is expected to be released in 2012.^[153]

Artistry[link]

Vocal ability[link]

Aguilera performing during her Back to Basics Tour in 2006

Aguilera possesses a soprano^[154][155] vocal range and has been referred to as the "voice of her generation" and a blue eyed soul singer.^[156][157] Aguilera also topped COVE's list of the 100 Best Pop Vocalists with a score of 50/50^[158][159] and came fifth in MTV's 22 Greatest Voices in Music.^[160] Her rendition of "It's A Man's Man's Man's World" at the 49th Grammy Awards ranked third in the Grammy's Greatest Moments List behind Celine Dion's performance of "My Heart Will Go On" and Green Day's performance of "American Idiot". In an interview, Dion described Aguilera as "probably the best vocalist in the world."^[161] Rolling Stone ranked Aguilera at 58 on their list of the 100 Greatest Singers of All Time, the youngest singer on the list.^[21]

Describing Aguilera's voice, singing teachers Phyllis Fulford and Michael Mailler said, "The low register is light and tired, the belting register is ample and full, but very scratchy because she screams; and head voice as well as whistle register are light, pure and bright. Her vocal range extends from G below middle C to C♯ one octave above soprano high C (G₃ – C♯₇). She can belt to F one octave and a third above middle C (F₅). She possesses a good-sized technical arsenal. Her trill is solid, she has a big mastery of melismas, and can sustain very long notes."^[162] Los Angeles Times writer Margaret Wappler adds Aguilera can deliver "a well-executed legato."^[163]

Since her debut in 1999, Aguilera has been compared to the likes of Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston.^[164] David Browne of The New York Times writes, "Aguilera has been one of the foremost practitioners of the overpowering, Category 5 vocal style known as melisma. Ms. Carey, Ms. Houston and Ms. Aguilera, to name its three main champions, are most associated with the period from the late ’80s through the late ’90s."^[165] A review in the Los Angeles Times compared Aguilera's vocal stylings to Barbra Streisand, Gladys Knight, and Aretha Franklin adding, "Aguilera's Streisand-esque tendencies are a good thing; they're helping her figure out how to become the "great singer" she's been dubbed since she released her first single, the wise-beyond-its-years "Genie in a Bottle", at 18."^[166] Although praised for her vocals, Aguilera has been labeled for oversinging in her songs and concerts.^[167] Longtime producer and writer, Linda Perry, commented on working on the track "Beautiful", saying, "I tried to keep it straight. I told her to get rid of the finger waves. Every time she'd start going into "hoo-ha", I'd stop the tape. I'm like, 'You're doing it again.'" Perry ended up using the first take saying, "She had a hard time accepting that as the final track. It's not a perfect vocal – it's very raw. She knows her voice really well, and she knows what's going on. She can hear things that nobody else would catch."^[168]

Themes and musical style[link]

Aguilera performing during her Back to Basics Tour in 2006

The constant theme in Aguilera's music and lyrics is love, although she has written on other subjects including spirituality, female empowerment, and grief. Aguilera has also written about her childhood in two of her records which dealt with domestic abuse. In an interview Aguilera admitted she feels responsible to reveal her most vulnerable feelings and to share the darker sides of her life adding "People that can relate might not feel as alone in the circumstance."^[169] She has been noted to constantly changing her sound in her music and lyrical content. Originally marketed as a bubblegum pop singer during the late 90s pop scene, she quickly departed into a broad range of musical genres for her follow-up album Stripped. A review states, "Clearly afflicted with Premature Serious Artist Syndrome, Aguilera wants to demonstrate the range of her interests – vampy soul, quasi-metal, piano-bar intimacy, quiet-storm R&B, bounce-bounce hip-hop, and semi-exotic rock, all of it dutifully accomplished."^[69]

The majority of the songs are characterized by Aguilera's loud vocals, though she has used breathy and soft vocals.^[170] Her 2006 release, Back to Basics included producer DJ Premier. The New York Times exclaims, "Her decision to work with the low-key DJ Premier was also a decision to snub some of the big-name producers on whom pop stars often rely."^[171] Aguilera has often cited that she prefers working with producers that are not in popular demand, saying "I don't necessarily go to the main people that are the No.1 chart-toppers in music."^[172] The album included live instrumentation and samples of past jazz and soul records. Some tracks on the album included non-traditional forms of pop music such as swing jazz and big band, drawing comparisons to Madonna's I'm Breathless and the musical film Cabaret.^[173] Her first feature film, Burlesque, influenced by Cabaret, featured mainstream producers Tricky Stewart and Danja on the soundtrack where several established songs were updated and worked into dance numbers, a style similar to 2001's Moulin Rouge! "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" was performed by Aguilera in the film, a musical number also performed by Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge!

Influences[link]

One of Aguilera's major influences and idol is blues singer Etta James, whose classic song "At Last" has been covered by Aguilera throughout her career. Aguilera says, "Etta is my all-time favorite singer. I've said it for the last seven years – since I had my first debut record out – in every interview. I mean, all of Etta's old songs, countless songs I could name, I grew up listening to."^[174] Following James' death in 2012, Aguilera was asked to perform "At Last" at her funeral.^[149] Prior to performing Aguilera stated, "There's a line in this song that says 'I found a dream that I could speak to.' And for me that dream, all my life, has been Etta James."^[175] The majority of her album, Back to Basics, pays tribute to James and other pop standard singers who many originated from the 1950s. In her early years she listened to vintage jazz, blues, and soul music.^[176] The album included an unreleased song, "Slow Down Baby", which sampled a Gladys Knight & the Pips song. A review in The Guardian declared, "Practically everything recorded before Aguilera was born blurs into one amorphous genre, which she categorises, somewhat inadequately, as "fun music".^[177] Aguilera has also named Madonna and Janet Jackson as two of her biggest influences "for being re-inventive and being brave as strong females, to explore whatever, even if they do get bad press. It's just like they were fearless."^[178] Her other musical influences include Aretha Franklin,^[179] Whitney Houston,^[180] and Nina Simone.^[181]

Aguilera cites the musical The Sound of Music and its lead actress, Julie Andrews as an early inspiration for singing and performing.^[182] She mentioned the "Golden age of Hollywood" as another inspiration in which she says, "I'm referencing Marlene Dietrich, Marilyn Monroe, Carole Lombard, Greta Garbo, Veronica Lake".^[183] Ironically, her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is located near Julie Andrews and is next to Greta Garbo.^[184] In her music video for "Ain't No Other Man" she plays her alter ego, "Baby Jane" in reference to the film Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?.^[185] The film's stars included actresses Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. The third single off Back to Basics, "Candyman" was inspired by the 1941 song, "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" by The Andrews Sisters which was played during World War II. She was also inspired by pin-up girls and several paintings by Alberto Vargas. Aguilera has expressed interest in cultural icons Nico, Blondie and artists Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol.^[186] She has often worked with photographer and close friend, David LaChapelle who once worked with Warhol. Chapelle has shot many of Aguilera's music videos, magazine shoots and advertisements. She is also a fan of graffiti artist Banksy. In 2006, she purchased three of Banksy's works during a private art exhibition; one of them included a pornographic picture of Queen Victoria in a lesbian pose with a prostitute.^[187] She has mentioned in several interviews that she is a fan of actress Angelina Jolie,^[188] and her Burlesque co-star, Cher.^[114] Fashion has also been a part of Aguilera's music career and image which she has used as a form of expression during performances and music videos. In 2003, she became the muse and inspiration for Donatella Versace's 2003 fall line. Versace also designed pieces her tour the following year. Aguilera is also a fan of Roberto Cavalli, John Galliano, Marc Jacobs, and Alexander McQueen whose designs she has worn throughout her career.^[189][190]

Other ventures[link]

In 2000, Aguilera was the face for make-up line Fetish where she worked in choosing colors and packaging for the line. She ended her contract the following year.^[191] Throughout her career Aguilera has endorsed several brands, including Skechers, Mercedes-Benz, Verizon Wireless, and soft drink giants Coca-Cola in 2001, and Pepsi in 2006.^[192] She became the muse and model for fashion house Versace appearing in a campaign for the 2003 fall line.^[193] In 2004, Aguilera earned £200,000GBP (about $300,000USD)^[194] for opening the summer sale at London's Harrods store which took in record breaking profits during the four week period.^[195] In 2005, she was reportedly paid $3.6 million^[196] to sing a three song set for Russian billionaire Andrey Melnichenko's wedding. Aguilera signed a contract with European cell phone operator Orange to promote the new Sony Ericsson Walkman phone during the 2006 World Cup. In 2010, Aguilera was paid $1 million by investor Charles Brandes to perform at a private party.^[197]

In 2008, jewelry designer Stephen Webster and close friend of Aguilera released "Shattered", a collection of sterling silver pieces, through Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman. Aguilera, who inspired the collection, was featured as a Hitchcock heroine saying, "Working together on this campaign and collection has been an incredible experience. I am honored to be a part of it all."^[198][199] They reprised their work together for Webster's 2009 spring line.^[200] In 2011, Aguilera attended São Paulo Fashion Week to premiere her new line of clothing for Brazilian department store C&A which launched in April.^[201]

Aguilera released two fragrances throughout Europe, the first one Xpose, was released in late 2004 and sold relatively well.^[202][203] Through Procter and Gamble Aguilera released her signature fragrance, Simply Christina in 2007.^[204] In Christmas 2007, the fragrance became the number one perfume in the UK,^[205] and later in 2009 it became the 4th best selling perfume in the UK,^[206] and Germany where it topped sales for the year.^[207] The perfume won as the people's choice for favorite celebrity fragrance at the annual UK Fifi Awards 2008.^[208] She released her third fragrance, Inspire, accompanied with a body care collection, on September 1, 2008.^[209][210] The perfume hit shelves in the US, Canada, Latin America, Asia and Northern and Eastern Europe. It was Aguilera's first fragrance released outside of Europe.^[211] Her worldwide ad campaign included a television ad shot by David LaChapelle and was released in the US through Macy's department stores. The release coincided with Macy's 150th anniversary which featured Aguilera in commemorative photos.^[212] She released her fourth fragrance By Night in October,^[213] which became the third best selling fragrance in the UK in 2009.^[206] Both “By Day“ and “By Night“ were nominated for Best Perfume of the Year at the FIFI Awards 2011.^[214] The range was further augmented by Royal Desire in 2010,^[215] and Secret Potion the following year.^[216]

Philanthropy[link]

Throughout her career, Aguilera has been involved with several charities. She signed a letter from PETA to the South Korean government asking that the country stop its alleged killing of dogs for food.^[217] During her 2007 tour she unknowingly wore a fur stole during the beginning of her tour, which designer Roberto Cavalli provided without informing Aguilera. After receiving a video from PETA Vice President Dan Mathews on the treatment of foxes, she replaced the stole with faux fur for the remainder of her tour. Aguilera was reportedly upset adding, "I only ever wear fake fur".^[218] In 2010 Aguilera auctioned off tickets for her upcoming tour for Christie's A Bid to Save the Earth. Proceeds benefit nonprofit environmental groups Conservation International, Oceana, Natural Resources Defense Council, and The Central Park Conservancy.^[219] Aguilera also supports Defenders of Wildlife, Missing Kids, National Alliance of Breast Cancer Organizations,^[220] Women's Cancer Research Fund,^[221] and Cedars-Sinai Women's Cancer Research Institute.^[222] She has also worked alongside nonprofit organization Do Something saying, "Every individual has the power to inspire young people across the country."^[223]

In 2010, Aguilera was nominated for a VH1 Do Something Award for her work with the organization and her efforts in the response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake. She was featured in the campaign for photographer, Brie Childers with the goal of helping women of all ages, races and lifestyles feel beautiful and confident about themselves and the body and skin they were born with. Proceeds from benefit several women's charities nationwide.^[224] Aguilera is still a major contributor in her hometown of Pittsburgh contributing regularly to the Women's Center & Shelter of Greater Pittsburgh. According to her official website, she toured the center and donated $200,000 to the shelter. She also has auctioned off front row seats and back stage passes for the Pittsburgh-based charity.^[225] She has continued her donations and visits to the shelter, and plans to open an additional one.^[226] She also supports the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Refuge UK.^[220] Since then she has worked with Lifetime Television's 'End violence against women' campaign. Her work there included a public service announcement which aired on the network and during her 2007 tour.^[227]

Aguilera is a supporter of the LGBT community and is considered a gay icon by many^[who?]. She was honored at the GLAAD Awards for using gay and transgender images in her music video for "Beautiful". When accepting the award Aguilera said, "My video captures the reality that gay and transgender people are beautiful, even though prejudice and discrimination against them still exists."^[228] In 2005, she appeared on a compilation album titled, Love Rocks, proceeds benefit the Human Rights Campaign, an organization dedicated to fighting for equal rights for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered people. In 2008, she publicly spoke out against California's Proposition 8 which eliminates same-sex marriage in California saying, "Why you would put so much money behind something [aimed at] stopping people from loving each other and bonding together? I just don't understand it. It's hard for me to grasp. But I would've been out there with my rally sign as well."^[229] In 2011 Aguilera was honored at The Abbey, a gay club in West Hollywood, for her contributions to the gay community as the first honoree on their Gay Walk of Fame joining Dame Elizabeth Taylor in being immortalized forever.^[230]

Aguilera contributes in the fight against AIDS, by participating in AIDS Project Los Angeles' Artists Against AIDS "What's Going On?" cover project. In 2004, Aguilera became the new face for cosmetic company M·A·C and spokesperson for M·A·C AIDS Fund. Aguilera appeared in advertisements of the M·A·C's Viva Glam V lipstick and lipgloss, and was featured on Vanity Fair in recognition of her campaign work. In addition, Aguilera contributed to YouthAIDS by posing for a joint YouthAIDS and Aldo Shoes campaign for "Empowerment Tags" in Canada, the U.S. and the UK. She was featured with one of three ubiquitous slogans, "Speak No Evil?" and stated, "HIV is something that people don’t want to talk about, hear about, or face."^[231][232] Singer Elton John featured Aguilera in his charity book titled "Four Inches" benefiting the Elton John AIDS Foundation.^[233] Elton also hand-picked Aguilera, for his annual "Fashion Rocks" charity concert which accompanies music and fashion to benefit the fight against AIDS/HIV.^[234]

Aguilera on a promotional poster for World Hunger Relief

In the run-up to the 2004 United States presidential election, Aguilera was featured on billboards for the "Only You Can Silence Yourself" online voter registration drive run by the nonpartisan, non-profit campaign "Declare Yourself". In these political advertisements, shot by David LaChapelle, Aguilera was shown with her mouth sewn shut, to symbolize the effects of not voting. She appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show to discuss the importance of voting. In late 2007 Aguilera became the spokesperson for "Rock the Vote" where she urged young people to vote in the 2008 presidential election.^[235] In partnership with "Rock the Vote", she appeared in a public service announcement which aired in summer 2008. The advert showed Aguilera with her son, Max Bratman, wrapped in an American flag, while singing "America the Beautiful".

In November 2005, all of her wedding gifts were submitted to various charities around the nation in support of Hurricane Katrina victims.^[236] That year she also performed at "Unite of the Stars" concert in aid of Unite Against Hunger in Johannesburg, South Africa and at the Nelson Mandela Children's Fund at the Coca-Cola Dome.^[237] In March 2007 Aguilera took part in a charity album (remaking Lennon's "Mother"), proceeds benefit Amnesty International's efforts to end genocide in Darfur. The album titled, Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur, was released June 12, 2007, and featured various artists.^[238] In 2008, she headlined London's Africa Rising charity concert at Royal Albert Hall which raises awareness for finding substantial issues facing the continent.^[239] Later that year she appeared on the Turkish version of Deal or No Deal "Var mısın? Yok musun?", where proceeds were donated to a charity program for orphans.^[240]

In 2009, Aguilera became the global spokesperson for World Hunger Relief appearing in advertisements, online campaigns and a public service announcement.^[241] Aguilera and her then-husband traveled to Guatemala with the World Food Programme to bring awareness to issues such as the high malnutrition rate in that country. She met with families of the villages and some of the beneficiaries of WFP's nutrition programs. Aguilera adds, "The people of WFP do such a great job helping hungry children and mothers. I'm thankful for the opportunity to be part of such a wonderful project."^[242] Since becoming a global spokeswoman Aguilera has helped raise over $22 million which helped provide over 90 million meals.^[243] She was honored at Variety's annual "Power of Women" luncheon in late 2009 alongside other women in entertainment for her contribution to philanthropic and charitable causes.^[244] In response to the 2010 Haiti earthquake, Aguilera donated a signed Chrysler 300 which was auctioned for relief efforts.^[245] She was one of the many artists who appeared on the Hope for Haiti telethon on January 22, 2010, donations directly benefited Oxfam America, Partners In Health, Red Cross and UNICEF. She later appeared on a second public service announcement alongside sports icon Muhammad Ali to raise funds for the World Food Programme's efforts to bring food to survivors of the earthquake.^[246] Later that year Aguilera made her first visit to Haiti as an ambassador against hunger where she visited two schools in the town of Léogâne. During her time there she assisted in the ongoing efforts to help the badly damaged town where she served meals and highlighted reconstruction efforts in the country.^[247] That year, Aguilera was appointed UN ambassador for the WFP.^[19]

Discography[link]

• Christina Aguilera (1999)
• Mi Reflejo (2000)
• My Kind of Christmas (2000)
• Stripped (2002)
• Back to Basics (2006)
• Bionic (2010)
• Untitled 10th Album (2012)

Filmography[link]

Tours[link]

Headlining

• Christina Aguilera in Concert (2000–01)
• Stripped Live... on Tour (2003)
• Back to Basics Tour (2006–07)

Co-headlining

• Justified/Stripped Tour (2003) (with Justin Timberlake)

See also[link]

	Book: Christina Aguilera
Wikipedia books are collections of articles that can be downloaded or ordered in print.

Christina Aguilera portal

• List of Christina Aguilera tours
• List of best-selling music artists
• List of artists who reached number one in the United States
• List of artists who reached number one on the UK Singles Chart
• List of awards and nominations received by Christina Aguilera
• Honorific nicknames in popular music

References[link]