THE mid-sixteenth century was a period of change and
il: uncertainty for England, not only in religious, political
and economic affairs, but also in the arts. Abandoning
their cultural insularity, the English began cautiously at first,
and later with growing enthusiasm, to assimilate the artistic
ideas and ideals of the Italian Renaissance. These changes
affected musicians as well as architects and poets. The
detached late-medieval style of choral music which reached
its zenith in the elaborate festal masses and antiphons of
John Taverner (c. 1495-1545) slowly gave way to a sub-
jective and expressive art that sought not only to present
the words more clearly but also to convey something of their
mood, meaning and imagery. During this period the ground
was prepared for the brilliant flowering of the motet and
madrigal in late Elizabethan and early Jacobean times.
Towards the end of King Henry VIII’s reign, English
composers began to respond to the influence of a musical
style established on the Continent earlier in the century.
Imitative, antiphonal, and simple chordal writing gradually
undermined the discursive lyrical polyphony of the florid,
early Tudor style. The religious upheavals of 1549 and 1559
accelerated this process by abolishing the elaborate ritual
and ceremonial of which the florid style had been an
integral part, and by instituting the English liturgy which
required simple music to articulate the words clearly. Con-
trapuntal elaboration, out of place in the Anglican services,
found a new outlet in instrumental music, but composers
still devoted their utmost skill to the Latin motet, which in
the works of William Byrd reached heights unsurpassed in
English music. After the Reformation there was no longer
a liturgical context for the motet (except in clandestine
Catholic services), and no religious reason for constructing
polyphony upon a plainsong cantus firmus —though this
practice continued to be a sine qua non of technical accom-
plishment. Following trends that can be paralleled on the
Continent at the beginning of the century, composers chose
their texts freely, showing a marked preference for those of
a penitential nature, and concentrated on methods of
expression that were hardly feasible within the constraints
of the cantus firmus technique.
Owing to his exceptional skill and long creative life,
Thomas Tallis played a leading part in this change of
musical style. Born about 1505, he is first recorded as an
organist at Dover Priory in 1531, and later held posts at a
London church and at Waltham Abbey in Essex. At the
dissolution of the monastery in 1540, he spent a short time
at Canterbury, but soon became a Gentleman of the Chapel
Royal, a post he held through all the religious changes until
his death in 1585. Much of his music has been preserved
only in manuscript, but in 1575 he collaborated with Byrd
to produce a printed collection of motets and hymns,
entitled Cantiones Sacrae, which the two composers dedi-
cated to the Queen in recognition of her grant to them of
a monopoly of printed music and music-paper.
Trained under the old tradition, Tallis wrote with great
success in the florid pre-Reformation style. Yet his person-
ality is more fully revealed in the expressive later motets
and in those which show him gradually coming to terms
with the new idiom; and: it is these that are principally
represented on this record and its companion (ZRG5479/
RG479). With his fondness for thick texture, involved
dissonance, and melancholy minor modes, Tallis never
achieved the wide range of his pupil Byrd, but he was
tireless in his exploration of new techniques and means of
expression. Above all, he carved out for himself —we can
only guess at what cost—a consistent and highly personal
idiom. His music speaks clearly across the centuries from
those troubled years of the mid-sixteenth century; it is the
genuine and distinctive voice of a true musical poet.
The two settings of the Compline hymn, Te lucis ante
terminum, although published in the 1575 collection, were
probably composed while the Latin rite was still in use. By
tradition, the stanzas of hymns were performed alternately
to plainsong and polyphony, and Tallis therefore set only
the second of the three stanzas of this hymn; he based one
setting on the festal, the other on the ferial, plainsong tune,
which can be heard clearly at the top of the five-part
texture. Ecce tempus idoneum and Veni Redemptor gentium
follow the same liturgical method, but in these hymns the
organ takes the place of the polyphonic choir, and in the
organ verses the plainsong tune is submerged in the contra-
puntal structure. O nata lux, also printed in 1575, appears
to be a later composition. Tallis takes the first two stanzas
of a longer hymn and sets them consecutively in a simple
chordal style; a metrical pattern (of three shorts and a long),
rather than a plainsong tune, is the basis of this elegant
miniature in which simplicity conceals the greatest skill.
In manus tuas, Salvator mundi, In ieiunio et fletu, and
Derelinquat impius, all published in 1575, are among
Tallis’s most mature compositions, the last two being parti-
cularly advanced in style. The intense chordal writing and
contrasting tonalities of In ietunio suggest a close study of
Continental models, possibly the early motets of Lassus.
The opening imitation of Derelinquat impius, appearing in
a series of falling thirds, illustrates the text in an ‘intellec-
tual’ manner that would also have been appreciated by
Continental musicians; with its shapely form and beautifully
controlled melodic writing, this piece is unequalled in the
whole of the composer’s output.
The sponsors of the 1575 collection expressed the hope
that this first printed set of English motets would advertise
the skill of native composers abroad. Spem in alium was
possibly conceived in the same spirit of patriotic endeavour,
and it may well have been performed on some great state
occasion in the reign of Mary or Elizabeth. Like the seven-
part Suscipe quaeso of the 1575 set, it adopts a dramatic
style cultivated on the Continent, but rare in English music.
At the opening the forty voices enter successively on points
of imitation, but Tallis soon begins to exploit antiphonal
effects between the eight five-part choirs, alternating contra-
puntal passages with broad chordal phrases. The composer
reserves his boldest stroke for the first appearance of the
word respice, where all forty voices enter together upon a
magical change of harmony.
The Sources
The original manuscript of Spem in alium has not
survived. This edition is based on the set of parts (Gresham
MSS, London Guildhall Library) and the score (British
Museum, Egerton MS 3512 — discovered since the publica-
tion of Tallis’s motets in Tudor Church Music, vol. V1),
from which all the other existing sources seem to have been
derived, directly or indirectly. In these two MSS, English
words in praise of James I’s sons, Princes Henry and
Charles, are set to the music. An eighteenth-century copyist
attempted to restore the Latin text (Royal Music MS 4.g.1);
since he worked from the English version, his guesses have
no more authority than our own, and his underlay has often
been ignored by the present editor. The performance on this
record incorporates the organ bass which is found in both
the early sources.
The organ hymns are taken from the Mulliner Book
(British Museum, Add. MS 30513). The second organ-verse
of Ecce tempus appears anonymously there,.but is almost
certainly by Tallis; the MS also preserves a second organ-
verse of Veni Redemptor gentium, but its text is corrupt, and
it is not included on this record. The plainsong comes from
the printed Sarum Hymnals of 1518 and 1533, and is sung
in notes of equal value in a manner that seems to have
been current in England at the time. All the other items
have been transcribed from Cantiones Sacrae, 1575.
PHILIP BRETT
© Argo Record Company London, 1965
THE DECCA RECORD COMPANY LIMITED,
Argo Division, 115 Fulham Road, London, SW3 6RR
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