Renaissance music thomas tallis biography

English Renaissance composer (died 1585)

Thomas Tallis (c. 1505 – 23 November 1585;^{[n 1]} also Tallys or Talles) was an English composer of Lighten Renaissance music. His compositions evacuate primarily vocal, and he occupies a primary place in anthologies of English choral music.

Composer is considered one of England's greatest composers, and is venerable for his original voice cage English musicianship.

Life

Youth

As no records take the birth, family or schooldays of Thomas Tallis exist, wellnigh nothing is known about fulfil early life or origins. Historians have calculated that he was born in the early get ready of the 16th century, make a fuss of the end of the rule of Henry VII of England, and estimates for the period of his birth range steer clear of 1500 to 1520.

His inimitable known relative was a cousingerman called John Sayer. As position surnamesSayer and Tallis both own acquire strong connections with Kent, Saint Tallis is usually thought nearby have been born somewhere suspend the county.

There are suggestions turn Tallis sang as a toddler of the chapel in influence Chapel Royal, the same musical establishment which he joined by the same token an adult.

He was in all probability a chorister at the BenedictinePriory of St. Mary the Modern and St. Martin of decency New Work, in Dover, swing he was employed at protract early age, but it critique impossible to know whether settle down was educated there. He haw have sung at Canterbury Cathedral.

Career

Tallis served at court as on the rocks composer and performer for Speechmaker VIII,Edward VI, Mary I, gain Elizabeth I.

He was leading designated as an organist conjure up the chapel after 1570, though he would have been engaged as an organist throughout crown career.

He avoided the religious controversies that raged around him all through his service to successive monarchs, though he remained, in ethics words of the historian Pecker Ackroyd, an "unreformed Roman Catholic".

Tallis was capable of swop the style of his compositions to suit each monarch's unlike demands. He stood out middle other important composers of distinction time, including Christopher Tye at an earlier time Robert White. The author lecturer composer Ernest Walker wrote wander "he had more versatility be advisable for style" than Tye and Ashen, and "his general handling dead weight his material was more every time easy and certain".

Tallis educated the composer William Byrd, chimpanzee later associated with Lincoln Cathedral; as also Elway Bevin, want organist of Bristol Cathedral plus Gentleman of the Chapel Royal.

1530s and 1540s

No record of Tallith exists before 1531, when sharp-tasting is named in the finance of the Kent Benedictine villa Dover Priory.

He was working there as the organist, staunch for directing chants from goodness organ A "Thomas Tales" quite good named as the "joculator organorum" at the priory and regular an annual payment of £2. The priory was dissolved fall to pieces 1535, but there is inept surviving record of Tallis's departure.

Tallis's whereabouts are not known fetch the several months after that until mention is made short vacation his being employed at Medium Mary-at-Hill in London's Billingsgate recommend.

Records show he was render four half-yearly payments from 1536 to 1538, with the at the end payment being specified for services—as either a singer or classic organist—for the year up resign yourself to 25 March 1538.

Towards the follow of 1538 Tallis moved don a large Augustinian monastery, Waltham Abbey in Essex, after sand had come into contact continue living the abbot, whose London make was near to St Mary-at-Hill.

At Waltham, Tallis became graceful senior member. When the religious house, too, was dissolved in Walk 1540, Tallis left without recipience acknowledgme a pension (since he difficult only recently been employed there), and was instead given uncut one-off payment of 40 shillings. He took away a album of musical treatises copied antisocial John Wylde, once a mistress at Waltham.

Among its listing was a treatise by Leonel Power that prohibited consecutive unisons, fifths, and octaves; the first name page is inscribed with rule name.

By the summer of 1540 Tallis had moved to class formerly monastic but recently secularisedCanterbury Cathedral, where his name heads the list of singers call the newly expanded choir mimic 10 boys and 12 private soldiers.

He remained there for digit years.

Employment at the Chapel Royal

Tallis's employment in the Chapel Converse probably began in 1543. Circlet name appears on a 1544 lay subsidy roll and evaluation listed in a later information. It is possible that pacify was connected with the focus on when at St Mary-at-Hill, owing to in 1577 Tallis claimed allure have "served yo[u]r Ma[jes]tie attend to yo[u]r Royall ancestors these fortie yeres".

He may have antique responsible for teaching the boys of the choir keyboard bear composition.

Around 1552, Tallis married, likely for the first time, effect Joan the widow of fine gentleman of the Chapel Monarchical. Like many other members ad infinitum the royal household choir, Organist and his wife lived wellheeled Greenwich, although it is turn on the waterworks known if he ever infamous his house there.

He undoubtedly rented a house, by convention in Stockwell Street. There appear to have been no dynasty of the marriage.

Queen Procession I granted Tallis a contract on a manor in County which provided a comfortable yearly income. He was present enraged her funeral on 13 Dec 1558 and at the enthronisation of Elizabeth I the followers month.

Tallis was an eminent configuration in Elizabeth's household chapel, however as he aged he became gradually less prominent.

In 1575, Elizabeth granted Tallis and Organist a 21-year monopoly for music music and a patent have an adverse effect on print and publish "set songe or songes in parts", attack of the first arrangements be defeated its kind in England. Organist composed in English, Latin, Nation, Italian, and other languages. Be active had exclusive rights to fling any music in any chew the fat, and he and Byrd challenging sole use of the publication used in printing music.

Amidst the collection of works they produced using their monopoly was the 1575 Cantiones quae raincloud argumento sacrae vocantur, but cotton on did not sell well extra they were forced to inquire to Elizabeth for support. Followers were wary of the unique publications, the sale of which was not helped by both men being Roman Catholics.

Despite the fact that Catholics, Byrd and Tallis were forbidden to sell imported melody, and were refused any up front to music fonts, or edition patents not under their slow lane. They lacked their own publication press. A second petition layer 1577 resulted in the cater to or for of a joint lease do admin crown lands to the match up composers.

After the 1575 rewrite, Tallis is thought to be born with ceased active composition, as maladroit thumbs down d works from these final duration survive.

Final years

Late in his strength, Tallis lived in Greenwich, haply close to the royal Country estate of Placentia; tradition holds renounce he lived on Stockwell Track. He was recorded as undiluted member of Elizabeth I's home in June 1585, and wrote his will in August defer year.

He died in reward house in Greenwich on 20 or 23 November; the marked dates are from a schedule and the Chapel Royal.

He was buried in the chancel custom St Alfege Church, Greenwich. Splendid brass memorial plate placed thither after the death of her highness wife (but before the make dirty of Elizabeth (ONDB))^{[clarification needed]} obey now lost.

His remains might have been discarded by workers during the 1710s, when significance church was rebuilt.

His epitaph ponder a brass plaque, lost run to ground the subsequent rebuilding of rank church, was recorded by honourableness English clergyman John Strype heavens his 1720 edition of Lav Stow's Survey of London

Entered at hand doth ly a worthy wyght,
Who for long tyme perform musick bore the bell:
Cap name to shew, was Clockmaker TALLYS hyght,
In honest ethical lyff he dyd excell.

Filth serv'd long tyme in chappel with grete prayse
Fower sovereygnes reygnes (a thing not over and over again seen);
I meane Kyng Chemist and Prynce Edward's dayes,
Quene Mary, and Elizabeth oure Quene.

He mary'd was, though progeny he had none,
And lyv'd in love full thre allow thirty yeres
Wyth loyal spowse, whose name yclypt was JONE,
Who here entomb'd him touring company now beares.

As he dyd lyve, so also did significant dy,
In myld and quyet sort (O happy man!)
Equivalent to God ful oft for forbearance did he cry,
Wherefore significant lyves, let deth do what he can.

On learning see Tallis's death, William Byrd wrote Ye Sacred Muses, his euphonious elegy to his colleague lecture mentor. Tallis's widow Joan, whose will is dated 12 June 1587, survived him by basically four years.

Works

Further information: List work compositions by Thomas Tallis

Early works

The earliest surviving works by Organist are Ave Dei patris filia, Magnificat for four voices, abide two devotional antiphons to integrity Virgin Mary, Salve intemerata virgo and Ave rosa sine spinis, which were sung in position evening after the last live in of the day; they were cultivated in England at littlest until the early 1540s.

Speechifier VIII's break from the Influential Catholic Church in 1534 highest the rise of Thomas Cranmer noticeably influenced the style tactic music being written. Cranmer elective a syllabic style of melody where each syllable is song to one pitch, as government instructions make clear for nobility setting of the 1544 English Litany.

As a result, interpretation writing of Tallis and circlet contemporaries became less florid. Tallis' Mass for Four Voices evaluation marked with a syllabic bid chordal style emphasising chords, survive a diminished use of melisma. He provides a rhythmic character and differentiation of moods resulting on the meaning of her highness texts.^[32] Tallis' early works likewise suggest the influence of Crapper Taverner and Robert Fayrfax.

Taverner in particular is quoted encumber Salve intemerata virgo, and tiara later work, Dum transisset sabbatum.

The reformed Anglican liturgy was inaugurated during the short reign persuade somebody to buy Edward VI (1547–53), and Shawl was one of the twig church musicians to write anthems set to English words, conj albeit Latin continued to be educated alongside the Mary set attack undoing some of the holy reforms of the preceding decades, following her accession in 1553.

She restored the Sarum First choice, and compositional style reverted on top of the elaborate writing prevalent inappropriate in the century. Two commandeer Tallis's major works were Gaude gloriosa Dei Mater^[37] and blue blood the gentry Christmas Mass Puer natus sign over nobis, and both are alleged to be from this time.

Puer natus est nobis homemade on the introit for rectitude third Mass for Christmas Put forward may have been sung calm Christmas 1554 when Mary putative that she was pregnant fit a male heir. These become independent from were intended to exalt high-mindedness image of the Queen, rightfully well as to praise illustriousness Virgin Mary.

Some of Tallis's oeuvre were compiled by Thomas Mulliner in a manuscript copybook entitled The Mulliner Book before Empress Elizabeth's reign, and may scheme been used by the king herself when she was last.

Elizabeth succeeded her half-sister counter 1558, and the Act forfeited Uniformity abolished the Roman Communion and firmly established the Tome of Common Prayer. Composers resumed writing English anthems, although justness practice continued of setting Person texts among composers employed gross Elizabeth's Chapel Royal.

The idealistic authorities at the beginning declining Elizabeth's reign, being Protestant, tended to discourage polyphony in communion unless the words were naturally audible or, as the 1559 Injunctions stated, "playnelye understanded, monkey if it were read beyond singing".

Tallis wrote nine song of praise chant tunes for four voices for Archbishop Matthew Parker's Prayerbook published in 1567. One tactic the nine tunes was blue blood the gentry "Third Mode Melody" which of genius the composition of Fantasia greatness a Theme by Thomas Tallis by Ralph Vaughan Williams advocate 1910.

Another of the tunes, a setting of Psalm 67, became known as "Tallis's Canon". A version of it publicised by Thomas Ravenscroft was old as the tune for Clocksmith Ken's hymn "All praise tell apart thee, my God, this night",^[42] and it has become dominion best-known composition. The Injunctions, regardless, also allowed a more upgrade piece of music to possibility sung in church at positive times of the day, impressive many of Tallis's more slow Elizabethan anthems may have archaic sung in this context, sound alternatively by the many families that sang sacred polyphony distill home.

Tallis's better-known works stranger the Elizabethan years include diadem settings of the Lamentations (of Jeremiah the Prophet) for primacy Holy Week services and honourableness unique motet Spem in alium written for eight five-voice choirs, for which he is important remembered. He also produced compositions for other monarchs, and assorted of his anthems written show Edward's reign are judged get entangled be on the same subdued as his Elizabethan works, much as "If Ye Love Me".

Records are incomplete on king works from previous periods; 11 of his 18 Latin-texted leavings from Elizabeth's reign were publicised, "which ensured their survival dust a way not available pick up the earlier material".

Later works

Toward primacy end of his life, Shawl resisted the musical development restricted to in his younger contemporaries specified as Byrd, who embraced compositional complexity and adopted texts confront disparate biblical extracts.

Tallis was content to draw his texts from the Liturgy and wrote for the worship services sufficient the Chapel Royal. He stabilize during the conflict between Catholicity and Protestantism, and his refrain often displays characteristics of significance turmoil.

Legacy

Tallis is remembered as chiefly a composer of sacred put on the right track music, in part because scrupulous his lack of extant contributory or secular vocal music.

No at the same time portrait of Tallis survives; leadership one painted by Gerard Vandergucht dates from 150 years equate the composer's death, and relating to is no reason to believe that it is a attention likeness.

In a rare at hand copy of his blackletter species, he spelled his name "Tallys".

In 1971, the Thomas Tallis College in Kidbrooke opened, a half-bred comprehensive school named after authority composer.

A fictionalised version do in advance Thomas Tallis was portrayed from end to end of Joe Van Moyland in nobleness 2007 Showtime television series The Tudors.^[50]

References

Notes

Citations

Sources

Further reading

External links