Dec 11, 2020
All music by Thomas Tallis used with permission of the artists
and labels listed beneath.
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/i-oMO9qqzKA
As a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, Thomas Tallis (1505-1585)
composed sacred music for 4 successive English monarchs,
beginning with Henry VIII and ending with Elizabeth. These have been
turbulent instances in England, particularly for a church musician.
These have been turbulent instances in England, particularly for a church
musician. Like his colleague (and possible pupil) William Byrd,
Tallis was in a position to adapt his compositional type to satisfy the
continually shifting ideological calls for of the regimes underneath which
he served. Not like the combative Byrd, who in his later years
eliminated himself from court docket life and made a degree of his loyalty to
Rome, Tallis might have merely gone with the stream. We don’t
know for certain, as a result of there’s little or no details about his
life.
Right here to inform us what we do know is singer and scholar Kerry
McCarthy, writer of a concise new ebook on Tallis’s life and music
in Oxford College Press’s Grasp Musicians Collection (which additionally
consists of her ebook on Byrd beforehand mentioned on this podcast).
She enthusiastically discusses his music, his instances, the inspiration
of polyphony in plainchant which was obliterated by the
Reformation, the varied compositional methods of the time, and
the character of the medieval modes with which these composers
labored.
Hyperlinks
Kerry McCarthy, Tallis https://world.oup.com/tutorial/product/tallis-9780190635213
Hear Kerry sing with Capella Romana in a groundbreaking
recreation of the acoustics of a sixth-century Byzantine cathedral!
Misplaced Voices of Hagia Sophia: Medieval Byzantine Chant
https://cappellaromana.org/product/lost-voices-of-hagia-sophia-medieval-byzantine-chant/
Kerry McCarthy discusses Byrd on this podcast:
This podcast is a manufacturing of CatholicCulture.org. For those who like
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Music heard on this episode
Thomas Tallis:
“If ye love me” carried out by The Gesualdo Six, c/o Hyperion
https://www.amazon.com/English-Motets-Gesualdo-Six/dp/B078X98G4B/
Video from their YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/yHe2FDlHHa8
“Lesson Two Elements in One” carried out by Matthieu Latreille
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EsptIeArHI
“Miserere nostri” (Tallis/Byrd), “In jejunio et fletu” carried out
by Alamire, c/o Obsidian https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004H4OHXG/ref=dm_ws_sp_ps_dp
“Puer natus est nobis: Agnus Dei”, “Psalm Tunes from Archbishop
Parker’s Psalter”, “Spem in alium” carried out by Chapelle Du Roi,
from their Full Works of Tallis c/o Signum Information UK
https://signumrecords.com
Chapelle’s Du Roi’s Full Works of Tallis out there
affordably within the US right here
https://www.amazon.com/Tallis-Full-Chapelle-Du-Roi/dp/B005JWXA1K/
Ralph Vaughan Williams: “Fantasia on a Theme from Thomas Tallis”
carried out by Academy of Saint-Martin-in-the-Fields, dir. Neville
Mariner
https://www.amazon.com/Williams-Greensleeves-Tallis-Neville-Marriner/dp/B000004CVM/
