Thomas Tallis - The Complete Works
Boxed set of 9 volumes

Chapelle du Roi
directed by Alistair Dixon

Acknolegements

Many people were involved in the making of the Tallis series. My first thanks go to Steve Long and Mike Hatch of Floating Earth who had sufficient faith in the project to join with me to found Signum Records (now Signum Classics).

A crucial part of any recording is the producer and Chapelle du Roi greatly enjoyed working first with Steve Johns (discs 1 - 4) , then Edward Wickham (discs 5-7) and latterly Adrian Peacock (disc 8). Adrian Hunter produced and edited the consort music tracks on disc 9. With their sharp ears, calm manner and first class musicianship the recordings benefited enormously from their contributions.

Assisting the producers during the recoding sessions were the engineers whose task it was to operate he equipment and listen for extraneous noise; Mike Hatch, Mike Clements, Simon Eadon and Limo Hearn.

Also crucial to the production process were the editors who followed the markings of the producers and myself to produce the seamless finished tracks so expertly, They were Harriet Sims, Thore Brinkmann, Raphaël Mouterde, Stephen Frost, Limo Hearn and Dave Hinitt.

In order to reflect the level of research and preparation that went into the series we felt that the booklet notes should be written by the acknowledged experts in English music of this period. We were delighted that Professor Nick Sandon (Exeter) agreed to write the notes for volumes 1-5. Dr John Caldwell (Oxford) not only wrote the notes relating to the organ music found in volume 5, but also composed the faburden chants used in some of the hymns. Professor John Morehen (Nottingham) kindly agreed to temporarily emerge from retirement to write the notes for volumes 6 and 8. Dr David Allinson is the author of the Tallis entry in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and I was delighted that he was able to join with me in writing the notes for volume 7. Dr John Milsom (Oxford) made the music of Thomas Tallis the subject of his DPhil (Magdalen 1973) and not only did Dr Milsom consent to write the notes for volume 9 but he was also kind enough to provide the reconstruction of the consort piece 'Fantasia'.

Our grateful thanks also go to Jan Hart who designed and set the text in all the booklets, to the translators, Robert Bagur and Mariane Rosel-Miles (French) and Margarete Forsyth (German) and to Christine Darby who proof read and corrected each booklet before it went to press.

Editions

In order to make the series of recordings possible new editions of many of the works were required. It seems strange that four hundred years after his death, not all of Tallis's music is available in modern published form. These "missing" works will in due course be published by The Cantiones Press and thus choirs will be able to perform all the music of Thomas Tallis as well as have it available in recorded form.

Alistair Dixon