Thomas Tallis

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Thomas Tallis Life

He was organist of Dover Priory in 1532 but moved to London (Saint Mary-at-Hill) and then to Waltham Abbey, where the excellent choir and acoustics probably inspired him to compose his early Latin motets - Ave Dei Patris, Gaude gloriosa, and Salve intemerata - in the expansive and melismatic style then in favor.

On the dissolution of the abbey, Tallis went to Canterbury for two years as a lay clerk at the cathedral but soon took up an appointment at the Chapel Royal, where he remained until his death.

It was there that he met, taught, and befriended William Byrd, whose elegy "Ye sacred Muses" laments the death of his old and revered master.

Tallis was indeed a master, not of one but of many styles, including the rich texture in the vein of Robert Fayrfax, the newer post-Reformation counterpoint exemplified in the motets and hymns in the Cantiones sacrae published jointly with Byrd in 1575, and the simpler, more homophonic style of the anthems written for the publications of John Day and Archbishop Parker.

As an unrivaled example of a contrapuntal tour de force, Tallis's motet Spem in alium (for eight choirs of five voices) stands alone; it may have been written for some great ceremonial event at which the assembly of 40 highly trained voices would not be unusual.

- MIDI FILE - "Hear the voice and prayer" (1'16'')

Many of his Latin motets were adapted to English words, sometimes more than once; Absterge Domine, for instance, was sung to the tune of "Discomfit them" or "Wipe away my sins."

As a virtuoso organist and virginalist, Tallis left a small but remarkable collection of antiphons and hymn verses that also included two massive settings of the offertory Felix namque.

- MIDI FILE - “Iam lucis orto sidere” (1’03’’)