{"id":50979,"date":"2025-01-02T16:50:44","date_gmt":"2025-01-02T15:50:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/9f05b5ec-3c8f-4720-bc39-330e7d8a7cf9"},"modified":"2025-01-02T18:09:23","modified_gmt":"2025-01-02T17:09:23","slug":"thomas-tallis-the-ultimate-tudor-survivor","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/rss_feed\/thomas-tallis-the-ultimate-tudor-survivor\/","title":{"rendered":"Thomas Tallis: the ultimate Tudor survivor"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By <\/p>

Published: Thursday, 02 January 2025 at 15:50 PM<\/p>

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‘Tallis is dead, and music dies\u2019. So runs the final line of Ye sacred muses<\/em>, a consort song composed by William Byrd<\/a><\/strong> to mourn the passing of his friend and mentor Thomas Tallis in 1585.<\/p>

Probably a pupil of Tallis at one point, Byrd was not alone in considering the latter the greatest choral composer of his era. Tallis was, as one writer puts it, \u2018the first important English composer<\/a><\/strong>\u2019, and pieces such as the tender anthem If ye love me <\/em>and the intricate 40-part motet<\/a><\/strong> Spem in alium <\/em>are among the many works from his extensive output still performed today.<\/p>

<\/div> <\/figure> <p>Yet while the broad pillars of Tallis\u2019s achievement are obvious, detailed facts about his life are notoriously hard to come by. He may or may not have been born in 1805, perhaps in Kent in England’s south-east corner: no birth record survives, and we have no details of his family. Tallis\u2019s childhood also remains a blank. We know nothing about his early education, and there is no record of formative experiences he may have had while growing from a child into a teenager.<\/p> <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Early days: Henry VIII and the monasteries<\/h2> <p>The first sure-fire glimpse we get of Thomas Tallis is in 1530, probably in his mid-twenties. In September of that year his name is listed in an accounts book at Dover Priory (a Benedictine establishment), where he is labelled \u2018player of the organs\u2019. In that capacity, the young Tallis would have absorbed the hundreds of <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/musical-terms\/plainchant\">plainsong chants<\/a><\/strong> used by the monks in daily worship, some of which he used as building blocks for later, multi-part pieces. Most of the Priory has since been built over, but the refectory still stands.<\/p> <p>It is unclear how long Tallis stayed at Dover, or whether his career as a composer started there. Scholarship suggests that the expansive Marian setting<em> Ave dei patris filia <\/em>and the Magnificat for four voices may date from this period, when Tallis was involved daily in Catholic worship using Latin texts. The days of Dover Priory were, in any case, numbered: it closed in 1535, an early casualty of <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/artists\/henry-viii-composer\">King Henry VIII<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s break with papal authority and his dissolution of the Catholic monasteries.<\/p> <figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"> <div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"> <iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Tallis Scholars: Ave Dei Patris Filia (Thomas Tallis)\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/l7e4fzio9fg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\"\/> <\/div> <\/figure> <p>Where would Tallis fetch up next? Like the majority of English citizens in the 1530s he was a Catholic, and might have expected his musical career to hit a solid wall in Henry\u2019s reconstituted Church of England, now increasingly aligned to the Protestant Reformation in Europe.<\/p> <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Thomas Tallis and the last monastery to be dissolved<\/h2> <p>At this point, however, Tallis\u2019s ability to navigate nimbly the extreme religious and political turbulence of his period kicked in. A year spent working as a singer (or possibly organist) at St Mary-at-Hill Church, Billingsgate, bought him time to gauge how Henry\u2019s revolutionary distancing from Rome might impact in practical terms on patterns of daily worship.<\/p> <p>Then, in 1538, Tallis went back to a monastic setting at Waltham Abbey, perhaps judging that the effect of Henry\u2019s ecclesiastical re-shapings would not after all be so wide-reaching. He was wrong. In 1540, Waltham Abbey too was closed by Henry, the last working monastery to be dissolved in England. Tallis\u2019s position at Waltham had been a good one. He was the highest paid of over 60 lay workers, a clear step up on the professional ladder. But now Thomas Tallis was jobless again, stranded at a career crossroads somewhere in his mid-thirties.<\/p> <figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"> <figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"> Waltham Abbey, Essex, circa 1840. Pic: Getty Images – Getty Images <\/figcaption> <\/figure> <p>He was, though, nothing if not a survivor. By now he also had a reputation as one of England\u2019s brightest and most versatile church musicians. That is no doubt why we find his name heading a list of 22 singers recruited to the new professional choir at Canterbury Cathedral, where the Benedictine monks had formally surrendered governance to Henry\u2019s \u2018secularising\u2019 regime in April 1541.<\/p> <ul class=\"wp-block-list\"> <li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/articles\/best-cathedrals-in-the-world\">The world’s greatest cathedrals<\/a><\/strong><\/li> <\/ul> <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Being a ‘Gentleman’ was a job for life<\/h2> <p>Canterbury was Tallis\u2019s fourth job in a little over a decade, as he ricocheted from one appointment to the next, seeking a stable place to settle in the jagged ecclesiastical landscape created by Henry\u2019s decoupling from Catholic authority. Then, in 1543-44, an oasis of stability finally beckoned.<\/p> <p>Around that time, Tallis was appointed a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, a body of priests and singers who accompanied the King wherever he went, supplying his needs for daily worship and spiritual sustenance. Being a \u2018Gentleman\u2019 was a job for life: it is some measure of Tallis\u2019s standing among his peers that he had reached this career zenith amid the volatility created by Henry\u2019s re-casting of the church in a more Protestant mould, while himself remaining a Catholic.<\/p> <p>But where, in these years, does Tallis\u2019s composing fit in? When did he do it, and why? It is notoriously difficult to answer these questions, as dating Tallis\u2019s numerous works is far from an exact science. It may be, for instance, that the votive antiphon <em>Salve intemerata <\/em>had already been written, the measured intricacies of its vocal part-writing a clear flexing of Tallis\u2019s compositional muscles.<\/p> <p>The less florid Mass for Four Voices, much of it written with just one note for each syllable, may also date from the 1540s, as guidelines demanding more simplicity and clarity in vocal music filtered down from the Reformation-minded authorities.<\/p> <figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"> <div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"> <iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Tallis: Salve Intemerata - 1. Salve Intemerata Virgo Maria\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Xbz54SkllJs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\"\/> <\/div> <\/figure> <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Tudor England: a volatile and dangerous place<\/h2> <p>Three further monarchs reigned during Tallis\u2019s lengthy career \u2013 the Protestant Edward VI (1547-53), the Catholic Mary\u00a0I (1553-58) and the Protestant Elizabeth I (1558-1603). The effect on the Church of England was dizzying. Which language should be used in worship: the Catholic Latin or the Protestant English? What shape should services take liturgically? Which style of music \u2013 plain, decorative, or something in between \u2013 should church composers be writing?<\/p> <p>We have no written record of Tallis\u2019s feelings on these hotly contested matters. What we do know is that a stream of high-quality choral compositions flowed from his pen in the years of his maturity, in both Latin and English, and in formats ranging from humble psalm tunes to multi-stranded <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/musical-terms\/polyphony-music-definition\">polyphonic<\/a><\/strong> masterpieces. The most famous of these is the remarkable <em>Spem in alium<\/em>, a motet for 40 voices divided into eight choirs of five singers each. In its teeming richness of texture and swirling spatial perspectives, it is widely viewed as the greatest choral work of the\u00a016th century.<\/p> <figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"> <div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"> <iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Tallis - Spem in alium (a 40) - Harry Christophers - Live Concert - HD\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/QmH1nZSGIyY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\"\/> <\/div> <\/figure> <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Thomas Tallis, master of the musical about-turn<\/h2> <p>When the Catholic Mary Tudor succeeded her half-brother Edward VI in 1553, Tallis retraced his musical roots and supplied her Chapel Royal with a Latin festal mass, soaring antiphons and responsories. His seven-voice Mass <em>Puer natus est nobis<\/em> was probably first heard at Christmas 1554 while Philip II of Spain was in London. Tallis drew on his experience of writing for the Latin liturgy in the time of Mary\u2019s father, Henry VIII. He helped revive and preserve an old tradition, surpassing the sacred compositions of his youth.<\/p> <p>Within the time it took to change royal regimes and their attendant religious practices, Tallis was able to shift from Anglican innovator to Catholic renovator, polishing and perfecting past techniques in his works for the old queen. His votive antiphon <em>Gaude gloriosa Dei mater<\/em>, for example, possibly began life as an English-texted piece in the last years of Henry VIII. In its final Latin form, <em>Gaude gloriosa<\/em> is the most impressive of all works written during Mary\u2019s reign.<\/p> <p>Elizabeth I\u2019s accession in 1558 called for a second about-turn. Under the puritanical terms of the early Elizabethan religious settlement, Tallis proceeded to dust down techniques pioneered in his experimental compositions for Edward VI\u2019s church. His English church music includes functional settings of the new Anglican liturgy, the nine four-voice psalm tunes for Archbishop Matthew Parker\u2019s Psalter of 1567 sublime among them.<\/p> <p>The latter includes a memorable setting of Psalm 2, \u2018Why fum\u2019th in fight the Gentiles spite\u2019, which supplied <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/composers\/ralph-vaughan-williams\">Vaughan Williams<\/a><\/strong> with the raw material for his agelessly evocative <em><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/works\/tallis-fantasia-best-recording\">Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis<\/a><\/strong><\/em> in 1910.<\/p> <figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"> <div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"> <iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"THOMAS TALLIS "Why Fum'th in Fight The Gentiles Spite" THE SIXTEEN\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/cMxDt2KIwpk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\"\/> <\/div> <\/figure> <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">What were Tallis’s own religious beliefs?<\/h2> <p>Tallis\u2019s ability to compose \u2018with Calvinist severity or with unreconstructed Catholic extravagance as his current monarch demanded\u2019 (as his biographer Kerry McCarthy puts it) undoubtedly helped him to evade controversy in an era when men were executed for their religious allegiances. But does this chameleon-like quality automatically imply that he had no deeply held personal beliefs of his own, and was happy to sway with the prevailing wind?<\/p> <p>Works such as the profoundly felt <em>Lamentations of Jeremiah <\/em>and the ardently worshipful<em> Gaude Gloriosa<\/em> suggest not. Both pieces, and many others by him, glow with a spiritual warmth and commitment not easily conjured by those producing music for purely professional reasons.<\/p> <figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-4-3 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"> <div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"> <iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Tallis : Gaude Gloriosa Dei Mater, Taverner Consort & Choir\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/cH_bD3XzXX0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\"\/> <\/div> <\/figure> <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">When did Thomas Tallis die?<\/h2> <p>Despite his establishment of a pioneering music printing business with Byrd in 1575 (under Elizabeth I\u2019s patronage), there is evidence that Tallis gradually withdrew from the world of music-making and composing in the final decade of his life. He wrote his will in 1583, declaring himself to be still \u2018whole in body, of good and perfect memory\u2019. In November 1585 Thomas Tallis died, perhaps aged 80, and was buried at St Alfege Church in Greenwich, London. The original <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/articles\/medieval-music-guide\">Medieval<\/a><\/strong> structure was rebuilt after a violent storm in 1710, and it is not known where precisely the composer\u2019s remains are located.\u00a0<\/p> <p>Tallis\u2019s will provides one of the few reliable insights we have into the private personality behind the notes which made his public reputation. In it, he leaves all the household goods and his share of the printing business to his wife Joan, whom he\u2019d married three decades previously. Alms were provided for \u2018the poor people of the same parish\u2019, and to his old colleagues at the Chapel Royal he left over \u00a31,000 in today\u2019s money \u2018towards their feast\u2019 \u2013 an annual event at which the monarch\u2019s private singing corps made merry. Glasses will undoubtedly have been raised to Tallis\u2019s memory at the 1586 gathering.<\/p> <figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1000\" height=\"800\" src=\"https:\/\/c02.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/43\/2025\/01\/Untitled-design-2025-01-02T154837.209.jpg\" alt=\"Queen Elizabeth I\" class=\"wp-image-217818\"\/> <figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"> Elizabeth I, last of four monarchs under whom Tallis managed to prosper. Pic: Getty Images – Getty Images <\/figcaption> <\/figure> <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Longevity in a restless, violent age<\/h2> <p>The will also harbours an intriguing clue to Tallis\u2019s apparently unruffled career longevity, in a religiously restless and often violent age. Bequeathing his soul \u2018unto Almighty God, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the only redeemer of the world\u2019, Tallis makes no specific reference to his Catholicism \u2013 unlike the more confrontationally inclined Byrd in his will of 1623. Tallis was, it seems, temperamentally averse to conflict, a man secure enough in his own beliefs to benignly tolerate those of others.\u00a0<\/p> <p>However unassuming he may have seemed \u2013 one epitaph describes him as \u2018modest\u2019 and \u2018virtuous\u2019, living \u2018in patient, quiet sort\u2019 \u2013 his music tells a different story. Exquisitely textured, and anchored by an empathy with spiritual values, it resonated strongly in his own era and across the centuries since. \u2018If any musician in their time was to be considered outstanding\u2019, as another epitaphist put it, \u2018Tallis was always their chief glory.\u2019\u00a0<\/p> <h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A guide to Thomas Tallis’s style<\/h2> <h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Polyphony<\/strong><\/h3> <p>Few composers knew better than Tallis the art of weaving multiple strands of music together to create a complex vocal tapestry. In works such as the seven-part<em> Missa Puer natus est nobis <\/em>and the famous 40-part motet<em> Spem in alium<\/em> he hits glorious heights of intricacy and invention.<\/p> <h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Intimacy<\/strong><\/h3> <p>While much of Tallis\u2019s music grandly communicates the fervour and veneration involved in acts of Christian worship, he is also capable of more intimate emotions. His well-known anthem<em> If ye love me <\/em>has a disarming sense of tenderness, while the <em>Lamentations of Jeremiah <\/em>is notably melancholic and introspective.\u00a0<\/p> <h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Melody<\/strong><\/h3> <p>While shifting waves of <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/musical-terms\/what-is-harmony-in-music\">harmony<\/a><\/strong> and rich, multi-layered textures are often more important in Tallis than individual melodies, concise, memorable tunes were also part of his armoury. The nine settings he wrote for Archbishop Parker\u2019s Psalter show this gift for <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.classical-music.com\/features\/musical-terms\/what-is-a-melody\">melody<\/a><\/strong>, the third forming the basis of the <em>Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Talllis<\/em> by Vaughan Williams.<\/p> <h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Versatility<\/strong><\/h3> <p>Tallis was the ultimate professional, able to flip easily from one type of work to another \u2013 in Latin or English, for the Catholic or Anglican liturgy, for four voices or 40 \u2013 as the presiding monarch demanded. A sincere spirituality informs all of his work, regardless of the circumstances he was writing in.<\/p> <\/body><\/html>\n<hr class=\"no-tts wp-block-separator\"\/>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Published: Thursday, 02 January 2025 at 15:50 PM ‘Tallis is dead, and music dies\u2019. So runs the final line of Ye sacred muses, a consort song composed by William Byrd to mourn the passing of his friend and mentor Thomas Tallis in 1585. Probably a pupil of Tallis at one point, Byrd was not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":50980,"template":"","categories":[1,17],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"10"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/thomas-tallis-the-ultimate-tudor-survivor.jpg",1200,800,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/thomas-tallis-the-ultimate-tudor-survivor-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/thomas-tallis-the-ultimate-tudor-survivor-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/thomas-tallis-the-ultimate-tudor-survivor-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/thomas-tallis-the-ultimate-tudor-survivor-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/thomas-tallis-the-ultimate-tudor-survivor.jpg",1200,800,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2025\/01\/thomas-tallis-the-ultimate-tudor-survivor.jpg",1200,800,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Published: Thursday, 02 January 2025 at 15:50 PM ‘Tallis is dead, and music dies\u2019. So runs the final line of Ye sacred muses, a consort song composed by William Byrd to mourn the passing of his friend and mentor Thomas Tallis in 1585. Probably a pupil of Tallis at one point, Byrd was not…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/50979"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50980"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50979"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcmusicmagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50979"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}