December 11, 2020
All music by Thomas Tallis is used with permission from the artists and labels listed below.
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/i-oMO9qqzKA
As a gentleman of the Chapel Royal, Thomas Tallis (1505-1585) composed sacred music for four English monarchs, from Henry VIII to Elizabeth. It was a tumultuous time in England at the time, especially for church musicians.
It was a tumultuous time in England at the time, especially for church musicians. Like his colleague (and possibly student) William Byrd, Tallis was able to adapt his compositional style to meet the ever-changing ideological demands of the regime he served. Unlike the warlike Bard, who in his later years withdrew from court life to emphasize his loyalty to Rome, Tallis may have simply gone with the flow. There is very little information about his life, so we don’t know for sure.
Here’s what we know from singer and academic Kelly McCarthy, author of a concise new book on Tallis’s life and music in Oxford University Press’s Master Musicians series (this (Includes her book on Bird, which I previously discussed on the podcast). She speaks passionately about his music, his time, the basics of lay chant polyphony that disappeared with the Reformation, the various compositional techniques of the time, and the nature of the medieval modes these composers worked on.
link
kelly mccarthy Tallis https://global.oup.com/academic/product/tallis-9780190635213
Hear Kelly sing with Cappella Romana in a ground-breaking acoustic recreation of a 6th century Byzantine cathedral.
The Lost Voices of Hagia Sophia: Medieval Byzantine Chant
https://cappellaromana.org/product/lost-voices-of-hagia-sophia-medieval-byzantine-chant/
Kelly McCarthy says of Bird on this podcast:
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Music heard in this episode
Thomas Tallis:
“If ye love me” performed by Gesualdo Sixx, c/o Hyperion
https://www.amazon.com/English-Motets-Gesualdo-Six/dp/B078X98G4B/
Videos from YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/yHe2FDlHHa8
“Lesson Two Parts in One” by Matthew Latreille
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EsptIeArHI
“Miserere nostri” (Talis/Bird), “In jejunio et fletu” Performance: Alamire, c/o Obsidian https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004H4OHXG/ref=dm_ws_sp_ps_dp
“Puer natus est nobis: Agnus Dei”, “Psalm music from the Psalms of Archbishop Parker”, “Spem in arium” by Chapelle Du Roi complete works Tallis belongs to Signum Records UK
https://signumrecords.com
Chapelle’s du Roise complete works Thalys available here in the US at a reasonable price
https://www.amazon.com/Tallis-Complete-Chapelle-Du-Roi/dp/B005JWXA1K/
Ralph Vaughan Williams: “Fantasy on a Theme of Thomas Tallis” Academy performance at St. Martin-in-the-Fields. neville marriner
https://www.amazon.com/Williams-Greensleeves-Tallis-Neville-Marriner/dp/B000004CVM/
Source: The Catholic Culture Podcast – catholicculturepodcast.libsyn.com
