Thomas Tallis

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(b c1505; d Greenwich, 23 Nov 1585). English composer. He was organist of the Benedictine Priory of Dover in 1532, then probably organist at St Mary-at-Hill, London (1537-8). About 1538 he moved to Waltham Abbey where, at the dissolution (1540), he was a senior lay clerk. In 1541-2 he was a lay clerk at Canterbury Cathedral, and in 1543 became a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal; he remained in the royal household until his death acting as organist, though he was not so designated until after 1570. In 1575 Elizabeth I granted him a licence, with Byrd, to print and publish music, as a result of which the Cantiones sacrae, an anthology of Latin motets by both composers, appeared later that year.

His earliest surviving works are probably three votive antiphons (Salve intemerata virgo, Ave rosa sine spinis and Ave Dei patris filia) in the traditional structure common up to c1530: division into two halves, with sections in reduced and full textures. Other early works include the Magnificat and another votive antiphon, Sancte Deus, both for men's voices. Two of his most sumptuous works, the six-voice antiphon Gaude gloriosa Dei mater and the seven-voice Mass ‘ Puer natus est nobis ’, date from Mary Tudor's brief reign (1553-8), the former featuring musical imagery and melismatic writing, the latter expert handling of current techniques of structural imitation and choral antiphony. He also composed six Latin responsories and seven Office hymns for the Sarum rite and large-scale Latin psalm motets early in Elizabeth's reign. The 40-voice motet, Spem in alium, an astonishing technical achievement, may have been composed in 1573.

Tallis was one of the first to write for the new Anglican liturgy of 1547-53. Much of this music, including If ye love me and Hear the voice and prayer, is in four parts with clear syllabic word-setting and represents the prototype of the early English anthem. His Dorian Service is in a similar style. Among his Elizabethan vernacular music are nine four-voice psalm tunes (1567) and various English adaptations of Latin motets (e.g. Absterge Domine); the Latin Lamentations and the paired five-voice Magnificat and Nunc dimittis also date from this period. His instrumental works include keyboard arrangements of four partsongs and many cantus firmus settings and a small but distinguished contribution to the repertory of consort music which includes two fine In Nomines. Tallis's early music is relatively undistinguished, with neither Taverner's mastery of the festal style nor Tye's modernisms. But much of his later work is among the finest in Europe, ranging from the artless perfection of his short anthems to the restrained pathos of the Lamentations.

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The English composer and organist Thomas Tallis (ca. 1505-1585) wrote anthems, services, and other music for the Anglican rite. He is considered the father of English cathedral music.

Evidence points to Leicestershire as the birthplace of Thomas Tallis. Of his youth, education, and musical training nothing certain is known. The earliest official record of his professional activity places him as organist at Dover Priory in 1532. From his Benedictine cloister he moved first to St. Mary-at-Hill in Billingsgate about 1537 and then to the Augustinian Abbey of the Holy Cross at Waltham, where he served until its dissolution in 1540.

Under the adverse circumstances which ensued, Tallis next joined the musical establishment at Canterbury, leaving 2 years later to become a gentleman of the Chapel Royal. He stayed in that position for the rest of his life. For nearly a half century he composed, played, sang, and taught music at the English court. During that period he witnessed the stylistic transition from medieval to tonal polyphony, which culminated in his own compositions and in those of his brilliant pupil William Byrd. Tallis died in Greenwich on Nov. 23, 1585, survived by his widow, Joan.

Tallis composed mainly sacred works, and his oeuvre may most conveniently be divided into two kinds: those with Latin texts and those with English texts. Of the former there are four Marian motets, the colossal 40-voiced Spem in alium, along with some two dozen other motets; several responsories, antiphons, and office hymns; two Lamentations and two Magnificats; and three Masses. His sacred compositions on English texts include a "Great" and a "Short" Service; two service movements; various preces, litanies, responses, and psalms; and, most important of all, 28 anthems, among which 10 are clearly derived from his own Latin motets. The few extant secular pieces actually do not compose a separate class, since most of these are somehow related to sacred compositions. The instrumental In nomine and Felix namque compositions were composed upon sacred cantus firmi, and at least one piece, "Fond youth is a bubble, " is a secular contrafactum.

Some of Tallis's Marian motets, especially Gaude Virgo, reflect the hocketed, elaborate polyphony of the previous century, while the seven-part Miserere, with six parts in canon, and the elaborate polyphonic imitation of Spem in alium demonstrate the "deep learning" for which both Tallis and Byrd were famous. The same quality, but in more modern guise, is found in some of the 17 motets which make up Tallis's contribution to the Cantiones sacrae, a collection he and Byrd published jointly in 1575 as the first edition appearing under their new royal license.

Clarity of harmony and word setting become more pronounced in Tallis's compositions on English texts. Here too the transition from ancient to modern style may be traced, as can be seen by comparing the retrospective "Dorian" Short Service with the brighter and more tuneful anthems "Heare the voyce and prayer" and "If ye love me."

Further Reading

Studies of Tallis include Leonard Ellinwood's "Tallis' Tunes and Tudor Psalmody" in Armen Carapetyan, ed., Musica Discipline, vol. 2 (1948), and Paul Doe, Tallis (1968). Additional information can be found in Ernest Walker, A History of Music in England (1907; 3d rev. ed. 1952); Morrison C. Boyd, Elizabethan Music and Musical Criticism (1940); and Harold C. Schonberg, The Lives of the Great Composers (1970).

Tallis, Thomas (c. 1505-85). English composer and organist, whose early career included short periods at Dover priory, St Mary-at-Hill in London, Waltham abbey in Essex, and Canterbury cathedral. By 1545 he was a gentleman of the Chapel Royal, where he remained, also acting as organist, until his death. Thus, unusually, Tallis served four monarchs, something apparent in his music.

• Period: Renaissance (1450-1599)
• Country: England
• Born: ca. 1505 in England
• Died: November 23, 1585 in Greenwich, London, England
• Genres: Choral Music, Keyboard Music

Biography

The career of Thomas Tallis, Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, spanned a period of spectacular change in the English liturgical climate. Born early in the sixteenth century, his first musical appointment was as organist to a Benedictine (Catholic) Priory in Dover, two years before Henry VIII's definitive break with Rome in 1534. By 1537, Tallis was serving a London parish church as organist; in 1538 he was performing the same task for the Abbey of Holy Cross, Waltham, though this position evaporated when King Henry dissolved the monasteries in 1540. After a brief clerkship at Canterbury Cathedral, Tallis joined the Chapel Royal, where he played, sang, and composed for the remainder of his life, serving in turn Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary Tudor, and Elizabeth I. Among the lavish rewards he eventually reaped was a famous bequest of 1575, giving him and his young pupil, William Byrd, a complete monopoly on the printing of music and ruled music paper in England.

The liturgical music in England during this time underwent great changes, not the least of which was the shift between Latin and vernacular texts. At the outset of Tallis' career, the prevailing English style of Latin music followed the soaring treble-dominated textures of the previous century, as exemplified in the Eton Choirbook; his early Latin motets reflect this. But by the late 1540s, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer was working toward a standard liturgical practice, built around his Book of Common Prayer, that would finally replace the Sarum (English Latin) rite in 1559 with exclusively vernacular worship music. The reign of the Catholic "Bloody" Mary Tudor briefly interrupted this trajectory towards the vernacular with a militant resurgence of Catholic music in an older style; Tallis' Missa Puer natus and the motet Gaude gloriosa apparently date from this time. Stylistically, the church music of England over the second half of the century was yielding to the influence of the Continental imitative style, through the music of the transplanted Italian, Ferrabosco.

Through all these changes, Tallis appears to have retained a professional steadiness and respectability, making music and composing with grace and equanimity as his situation changed. His English-language settings range from simple treatments of the psalms to anthems (such as Hear the Voice and Prayer) to three complete settings of the Anglican Service; this music is commonly imbued with a somber and penitential mood. His Latin-texted pieces, whether following the stylish "modern" mode of pervasive imitation or not, demonstrate restraint and even tenderness. (One of the few exceptions, though, is his best-known work today, an over-the-top and still rather mysterious experiment in polychoral writing, the 40-voiced Spem in alium). Surprisingly little of Tallis' instrumental music survives, despite his over 50 years of professional organ playing. ~ Timothy Dickey, All Music Guide