|
Composer Profile: Thomas Tallis |
|
|
|
The Feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord occurs on August 6, but in the current lectionary, the Gospel reading for the Last Sunday after the Epiphany (February 22 in 2009) is always an account of the Transfiguration. This is entirely appropriate as the Transfiguration was perhaps the most glorious epiphany (manifestation or appearance) of Our Lord’s divinity prior to His Resurrection. The choir’s communion motet that day will be “O nata lux” (O light born of light) one of the miniature masterpieces of Thomas Tallis (c1505-1585). Its text comes from the office hymn for Lauds on the Feast of the Transfiguration.
Tallis’s long career began in the reign of Henry VIII and ended in that of Elizabeth I. Little is known about the composer’s childhood, and even the year of his birth is uncertain. He was probably from Kent. The earliest record of him is his appointment as organist at the small Benedictine priory in Dover in the early 1530s. The priory was dissolved in 1535. In 1537 and 1538 Tallis was employed at the church of St. Mary-at-Hill in London, where he probably made some important professional connections. In 1538 he was appointed to the extensive musical establishment at Waltham Abbey in Essex. Ordinarily this would have been an excellent career move for a musician, but this abbey was dissolved in 1540. We next find Tallis as part of the musical establishment of Canterbury Cathedral until 1543, the year he was most likely appointed to the Chapel Royal. He was part of the royal musical establishment for the rest of his life.
The religious upheavals in England during Tallis’s career left their mark on his output as a composer, since he was expected to conform to the requirements mandated by the current monarch. Even so, it is difficult to date some of his music, as works with Latin texts could find a place even during the extreme Protestant regime of Edward VI. Among Tallis’s Latin works are several highly elaborate settings of votive antiphons. Most of these date from the reign of Henry VIII (1509-1547), though by many estimations the greatest of them, “Gaude gloriosa”, probably dates from the reign of Mary I (1553-1558). Other works for the Latin rite include polyphonic masses and settings of office responsories.
The first Book of Common Prayer (1549) came into use during the reign of Edward VI (1547-1553). Gone were the florid votive antiphons, masses, and responsories, as a more austere church music with English texts took their place. Tallis contributed significantly to this simpler style. His Preces and Responses for Morning and Evening Prayer are still in use, though adapted to meet the textual modifications of later prayer books. The so-called “Festal Preces and Responses” in the Hymnal 1940 are, in fact, Tallis adapted to the American prayer book of 1928. One masterpiece from Tallis’s Edwardian period is the anthem “If ye love me”, which we sing at Good Shepherd in the period between Ascension and Pentecost.
“O nata lux” dates from the time of Queen Elizabeth. In 1575 she granted a monopoly for the publication of music to Tallis and his younger colleague William Byrd (c1540-1623). The same year, the two composers published Cantiones Sacrae, a collection of 34 Latin motets. Each composer contributed 17 works. “O nata lux” is from that collection.
No consideration of Thomas Tallis would be complete without mention of his most extraordinary work, the 40-part motet “Spem in alium” (I have never put my hope in any other but you, God of Israel). It too dates from the reign of Elizabeth, but the occasion for which it was written is now a mystery. One conjecture is that it was composed for the queen’s 40th birthday in 1573, hence the 40 voice parts.
--WJG |
News 
