Magnificat: My soul doth magnify the Lord (Luke 1 46-55) Nunc dimittis: Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace (Luke 2 29-32) Unlike much of Byrd's sacred music, the Great Service was not printed in Byrd's lifetime, and its survival is mainly owed to incomplete sets of church choir part-books, as well as three contemporary organ parts.
The Great Service must have been composed before 1606, the last date entered in one of the earliest sources, the so-called Baldwin Commonplace Book (GB Lbl Roy.
[2] Byrd intended it principally for the Chapel Royal Choir, who would have sung it on major liturgical feasts and state occasions during the early Stuart period.
A few passages(such as the Kyrie) are set in plain style with the two 'sides' of the choir in unison, but elsewhere Byrd makes full use of the possibilities for imitative writing and for various antiphonal and half-contrapuntal textures.
Most of the movements begin with a verse section scored for four soloists, who perhaps sang 'in medio chori' (in the middle of the choir), a procedure adopted in other Elizabethan Great Service settings.
Fellowes did not hesitate to describe it as the finest of all settings for the Anglican rite, though his editions suffer to some extent from unwarranted changes to Byrd's scoring indications.