I AGREE that William Byrd (May 10) was music's Elizabethan Shakespeare.

I am not aware of any other composer of that time who wrote successfully in all forms of music whether choral, vocal, instrumental or chamber.

Byrd was organist and choirmaster of Lincoln Cathedral from 1563 to 1572.

Despite his choice of being a Roman Catholic for reasons unknown he was fortunate to have a sympathetic and musical monarch who in 1575 granted him and his teacher Tallis a monopoly in music publishing.

When the first collection of Latin models dedicated to the Queen lost money Byrd petitioned her for financial help and received the lease of the manor of Longney in Gloucester- shire for 21 years. Around 1594 the Queen gave Byrd the lease of Stondon Place in Essex.

Byrd's neglect may be partly due to his music being regarded, even in his own lifetime, as unfashionable. He was regularly badgered to write in the contemporary Italian style which became increasingly influential in the 17th century. His pupil Thomas Morley introduced the madrigal, to which Byrd contributed, but later both men disowned it.

This and Morley's remarkable and beautifully written book A Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke, which links back to ancient forms as well as being a window on contempor- ary musical thinking, may have exhausted him and led to his early death.

While Byrd represents the peak of Elizabethan music, his richness is added to by including his contemporaries such as Peter Phillips, Orlando Gibbons, John Dowland and others.

It was only after the First World War that renewed interest was shown in the work of Elizabethan composers, a situation which continues.

Finally it has been argued that "the bird of loudest lay" in Shakespeare's mysterious poem The Phoenix and the Turtle is a reference to the great Elizabethan composer.

Thomas E. Rookes Ruskin Avenue, Lincoln.