Non nobis Domine

The piece is a round: a single short phrase, sung first by one voice, then taken up by a second voice while the first continues, then joined by a third, so the same handful of notes overlap and echo the way they do in a familiar round such as a simple song sung in canon. There is no contrasting middle section or buildup to a climax; the interest is in hearing the same short idea layered on itself, each voice entering a beat or two after the last. The Latin words, 'Non nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed nomini tuo da gloriam' (Not unto us, Lord, not unto us, but to your name give the glory), repeat throughout rather than tracing a longer story. The piece is brief, closing quietly once the voices have cycled through the phrase a few times, without a big final cadence or added instrumental flourish.

This round has been sung and printed under Byrd's name for centuries, most often as a spoken or sung grace at formal dinners and public banquets in England, and it still appears in concerts of English and early music for that association. Modern scholarship has cast doubt on the attribution: the earliest known assignment of the tune to a specific composer, in 1715, credited Thomas Morley, and the credit to Byrd only appears later, in a 1731 treatise. Some musicologists trace its melodic material to an earlier motet by the Flemish composer Philip van Wilder rather than to either English composer. Whatever its true origin, the piece has continued to circulate, and to be performed, under Byrd's name.