Thomas Tallis: The Complete Works

Chapelle du Roi
directed by Alistair Dixon

Tallis is dead and music dies. So wrote William Byrd, Tallis's most distinguished pupil, capturing the esteem and veneration in which Tallis was held by his fellow composers and musical colleagues in the 16th century and, indeed, by the four monarchs he served at the Chapel Royal. 

Tallis was undoubtedly the greatest of the 16th century composers; in craftsmanship, versatility and intensity of expression, the sheer uncluttered beauty and drama of his music reach out and speak directly to the listener. It is surprising that hitherto so little of Tallis's music has been regularly performed and that so much is not satisfactorily published.

This series of nine compact discs will cover Tallis's complete surviving output from his five decades of composition, and will include the contrafacta, the secular songs and the instrumental music - much of which is as yet unrecorded. Great attention is paid to performance detail including pitch, pronunciation and the music's liturgical context. As a result new editions of the music are required for the recordings, many of which will in time be published by the Cantiones Press.

Volume 1 - Music for Henry VIII

The first disc in the series consists of music from the 1530s, written by the young Thomas Tallis when he was still in his early posts at Dover Priory and St Mary at Hill in London. In addition to the three votive antiphons, Ave Dei patris, Ave rosa and Salve intemerata Tallis wrote a glorious parody mass setting based on the last of these - the Mass Salve intemerata. Also included are two small pieces which are settings of propers from the Lady mass; Alleluia: Ora pro nobis and Euge celi porta are both are delightful miniatures which are hardly known and which deserve wider exposure.

  Ave Dei Patris Filia
  Ave Rosa Sine Spinis
  Alleluia: Ora Pro Nobis
  Euge Celi Porta
  Kyrie Deus creator 
  Mass Salve Intemerata 
  Salve Intemerata

Volume 2 - Music at the Reformation

As the 1540s developed, the Reformation began to take hold and the style of music required from composers such as Tallis altered radically. The large-scale melismatic votive antiphons (for example those on disc 1) were no longer required; the emphasis moved away from Marian devotion to a more syllabic and compact style and, eventually, to settings of English rather than Latin texts. Disc two traces this development from the Jesus antiphon Sancte Deus, to the mass for four voices, the three early English anthems including If ye love me, the Te Deum for meanes and the Elizabethan Magnificat and Nunc dimittis.

  Magnificat & Nunc Dimittis
  Sancte Deus
  Conditor Kyrie 
  Mass for 4 voices
  Remember Not O Lord God (early version)
  Hear the Voice and Prayer
  If Ye Love Me
  A New Commandment I give You
  Benedictus
  Te Deum for meanes

Volume 3 - Music for Queen Mary

By 1549 it seemed that the Reformation was complete, but the political, economic and religious unrest in the Edwardine years meant that England was ready for a change and the death of Edward in 1553 made way for Queen Mary and the Catholic revival.

Disc three presents music from the reign of Queen Mary and includes the sumptuous mass in seven parts Puer natus est nobis, which may have been written to celebrate the supposed pregnancy of Mary in 1554. It has also been suggested that the motet Suscipe quaeso, similarly for seven voices, was written in the same year for Cardinal Pole's absolution of England from protestant heresy. Certainly it seems likely that the giant votive antiphon Gaude gloriosa was written as an act of flattery to Mary on her accession to the throne. Also included is a speculative re-construction of Beati Immaculati.

  Beati Immaculati
  Mass Puer Natus Est
  Plainchant propers
  Suscipe Quaeso 
  Gaude Gloriosa

Volume 4 - Music for the Divine Office - Vol. 1

Church composers in pre-Reformation England had a prescribed set of genre available to them as channels for their musical output. Tallis' examples of the mass ordinary and votive antiphon are found on volumes one and three in this series. The remaining musical forms are all for the divine office - the eight "Office Hours" which form the basic cycle of prayer throughout the day. The first two and last two of the daily services - Matins, Lauds, Vespers and Compline are known as the greater office hours (in contrast with the small daytime offices of Prime, Terce, Sext and None).

On high days and holidays church musicians were allowed to substitute a polyphonic setting of a Respond at Matins, Vespers or Compline which would otherwise have been sung to plainchant. At Vespers the Hymn and the Magnificat could also be sung to a polyphonic setting.

All these "modern" compositions acknowledged their roots by incorporating the substituted plainchant in one of the polyphonic parts or by alternating polyphonic verses with the original plainchant. On this disc we hear Tallis's Hymn and Respond settings from the first part of the church year. The final track is Tallis's early Magnificat setting which shows the young composer experimenting with compositional techniques new to both him and to the emerging English musical renaissance.

  Hodie nobis caelorum
  Salvator mundi
  Quod chorus vatum
  Videte miraculum
  In pace in idipsum
  Dum transisset sabbatum
  Jesu salvator saeculi
  Sermone blando
  Jam Christus astra ascenderat
  Loquebantur variis linguis
  Magnificat

Volume 5 - Music for the Divine Office - Vol. 2

On the second volume of Music for the Divine Office we hear the remaining settings of the Responds and Hymns from the second half of the church year.

  Audivi Vocem de Coelo
  Candidi Facti Sunt
  Honor Virtus et Potestas
  Homo Quidam Fecit Coenam
  Te Lucis Ante Terminum (Ferial)
  Te Lucis Ante Terminum (Festal)

On the second half of volume five we hear the the organ music that Tallis composed for the mass and office. As with choral polyphony, the 16^th century organ provided alternating interpolations with the plainchant verses of Hymns and Antiphons. Tallis's settings of organ verses from the five Hymns and three Antiphons are given here alternating with either plainchant or faburden verse settings. Where fewer organ settings exist than are required to substitute for each alternating verse, rather than repeat Tallis's music we have included organ verses by his contemporaries.

The last two tracks are for the mass. The Alleluia setting may well have been intended for use in mass, but the two settings of the Offertory chants Felix Namque (the other setting is on volume 9) are so extended that they are clearly for domestic use.

  Natus Est nobis hodie
  Veni Redemptor genitum
  Jam Lucis orto sidere
  Ecce tempus idoneum
  Ex more docti mistico
  Magnificat & Clarifica me pater (I)
  Clarifica me pater (II)
  Clarifica me pater (III)
  Gloria Tibi Trinitas
  Iste confessor
  Alleluia: Per te Dei genitrix
  Felix Namque (II)

Volume 6 - Music for the Anglican Service

The introduction of the new Edwardine prayer book in 1549 (and again in 1559 under Queen Elizabeth) meant that the Latin Use of Salisbury (The Sarum Use) was swept away and with it the need for the old musical forms that we heard on volumes 1, 3, 4 and 5 in this series. Instead it fell to the musicians of the Chapel Royal - namely Tallis and John Sheppard - to invent the musical forms for the new liturgy that we are still familiar with today. As a result we now have settings for Mattins and Evensong, particularly the paired settings of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis and the Great Service format, the settings of the Preces and Responses, English Hymns, Anglican chant and English Anthems.

  Dorian Service
    Venite
    Te Deum
    Benedictus
    Commandments
    Credo
    Sanctus
    Gloria
    Magnificat
    Nunc Dimittis
  Preces + Responses 1
  Preces + Responses 2
  Litany
  3 psalms
    Wherewithal shall a young man
    O Do well unto thy servant
    My soul cleaveth to the dust
  Anthems:
    O Lord Give Thy Holy Spirit
    Purge Me O Lord
    Verily Verily I Say To You
    Remember Not O Lord God (late version)
    O Lord In Thee Is All My Trust
    Archbishop Parker Tunes
    Christ Rising Again
    Out from the Deep

Volume 7 - Music for Queen Elizabeth - Latin Motets

Whilst being a Protestant in political terms, Elizabeth I had never the less been brought up as a Catholic by her father. Whilst English was the language of the church and the Reformed liturgy, composers were permitted - or in one of two cases even encouraged - to write music to Latin texts. On this volume we find Tallis’s Elizabethan motets many of which are contained in the publication of 1575 - Cantiones Sacrae - which Elizabeth jointly commissioned Tallis and Byrd to publish. The volume concludes with the giant 40-part motet Spem in Alium.

  Salvator mundi I
  O sacrum convivium
  In manus tuas
  O nata lux de lumine
  Absterge Domine
  Discomfort them O Lord
  Domine, quis habitabit
  Laudate Dominum
  Miserere nostri
  Salvator mundi II
  Mihi autem nimis
  O salutaris hostia
  In ieiunio et fletu (Low)
  In ieiunio et fletu (High)
  DerelinquaSt impius
  Spem in alium

Volume 8 - The Lamentations and Contrafacta

The Lamentations of Jeremiah was a favourite source of text for English and continental composers alike. For his setting Tallis chose two lessons used at Tenebrae (Matins and Lauds) in Holy Week. However Tallis’s two settings are likely to have been intended for private use rather than as part of the liturgy.

The statutory introduction of the First Book of Common Prayer on Whitsunday, 9th June 1549 precipitated an urgent need for a repertory of service music in the vernacular. One straightforward solution to the predicament was to adapt existing Latin motets to English texts, a genre of composition that has come to be known as a contrafactum. Contrafacta survive of liturgical music by pre-Reformation English composers as well as by several composers whose working life spanned the period of Reformation. The volume concludes with, Sing & Glorify heaven’s high majesty, an adaptation of Tallis’s celebrated 40-part motet Spem in alium was adapted to celebrate Prince Henry’s investiture as Prince of Wales in 1610.

  Lamentations of Jeremiah I
  Lamentations of Jeremiah II
  Wipe Away my Sins
  Forgive me, Lord, my sin
  Blessed are those that be undefiled
  Arise, O Lord, and hear With all our hearts
  I Call and Cry to Thee
  O sacred and holy banquet
  When Jesus went
  Blessed be thy Name
  O Praise the Lord II
  Sing and glorify heaven's high majesty

Volume 9 - Instrumental and Secular Music

The final volume explores the most obscure and enigmatic corner of Tallis’s output – his secular music. His profession as church musician and member of the Chapel Royal did not require him to write secular songs or pieces, yet some works may have been written for the Tudor court.

Tallis’s music was admired and used by others far beyond the Chapel Royal and the court. Some of his intended sacred choral works are included on this recording in other guises, arranged by musicians with performance intentions very different to that of the church. His reputation of greatness amongst his friends and contemporaries is reflected in William Byrd’s elegy Ye sacred muses, where he echoes the sentiments of others with the words "Tallis is dead, and Music dies".

String Consort
  In nomine I
  In nomine II
  A Solfing Song
  Salvator Mundi (trio)
  Fantasia
Lute
  Felix namque II
Harpsichord and Virginals
  Felix namque I
  When shall my sorrowful sighing slack
  Like as the doleful dove
  O ye tender babes
  Purge me, O Lord
  Per haec nos
  A Point
  Lesson: two partes in one
  Remember not, O Lord God
Organ
  Per haec nos
  A Point
  Lesson: two partes in one
Vocal
  Tu nimirum
  When shall my sorrowful sighing slack
  Like as the doleful dove
  O ye tender babes
  Ye sacred muses (William Byrd)