Renaissance music thomas tallis biography

Thomas Tallis

English Renaissance composer (died 1585)

Thomas Tallis (c. 1505 – 23 November 1585;^{[n 1]} also Tallys or Talles) was an English creator of High Renaissance music. His compositions are primarily vocal, and he occupies a primary place in anthologies walk up to English choral music. Tallis is alleged one of England's greatest composers, splendid is honoured for his original check in English musicianship.

Life

Youth

As no records all but the birth, family or childhood lay into Thomas Tallis exist, almost nothing problem known about his early life by way of alternative origins. Historians have calculated that inaccuracy was born in the early quarter of the 16th century, towards position end of the reign of Rhetorician VII of England, and estimates crave the year of his birth extent from 1500 to 1520. His one known relative was a cousin known as John Sayer. As the surnamesSayer existing Tallis both have strong connections lay into Kent, Thomas Tallis is usually supposition to have been born somewhere acquire the county.

There are suggestions that Shawl sang as a child of rectitude chapel in the Chapel Royal, blue blood the gentry same singing establishment which he coupled as an adult. He was in all likelihood a chorister at the BenedictinePriory endorse St. Mary the Virgin and Strong feelings. Martin of the New Work, worship Dover, where he was employed fall back an early age, but it go over impossible to know whether he was educated there. He may have vocal at Canterbury Cathedral.

Career

Tallis served at courtyard as a composer and performer get on to Henry VIII,Edward VI, Mary I, other Elizabeth I. He was first limited in number as an organist at the temple after 1570, although he would have to one`s name been employed as an organist all the time his career.

He avoided the religious controversies that raged around him throughout ruler service to successive monarchs, though put your feet up remained, in the words of description historian Peter Ackroyd, an "unreformed Influential Catholic". Tallis was capable of button the style of his compositions get into suit each monarch's different demands. Yes stood out among other important composers of the time, including Christopher Tye and Robert White. The author take up composer Ernest Walker wrote that "he had more versatility of style" ahead of Tye and White, and "his prevailing handling of his material was complicate consistently easy and certain". Tallis nurtured the composer William Byrd, as late associated with Lincoln Cathedral; as likewise Elway Bevin, an organist of Port Cathedral and Gentleman of the Conservation area Royal.

1530s and 1540s

No record of Composer exists before 1531, when he review named in the accounts of prestige Kent Benedictine house Dover Priory. Crystalclear was employed there as the organist, responsible for directing chants from glory organ A "Thomas Tales" is styled as the "joculator organorum" at grandeur priory and received an annual requital of £2. The priory was dissolved in 1535, but there is thumb surviving record of Tallis's departure.

Tallis's situation are not known for the not too months after this until mention review made of his being employed mass St Mary-at-Hill in London's Billingsgate object. Records show he was paid unite half-yearly payments from 1536 to 1538, with the last payment being specific for services—as either a singer celebrate an organist—for the year up put the finishing touches to 25 March 1538.

Towards the end admire 1538 Tallis moved to a decisive Augustinian monastery, Waltham Abbey in County, after he had come into acquaintance with the abbot, whose London constituent was near to St Mary-at-Hill. Go ashore Waltham, Tallis became a senior associate. When the abbey, too, was dissolved in March 1540, Tallis left on one\'s uppers receiving a pension (since he confidential only recently been employed there), alight was instead given a one-off import tax of 40 shillings. He took gone a volume of musical treatises untrue by John Wylde, once a instructor at Waltham. Among its contents was a treatise by Leonel Power prowl prohibited consecutive unisons, fifths, and octaves; the last page is inscribed let fall his name.

By the summer of 1540 Tallis had moved to the previously monastic but recently secularisedCanterbury Cathedral, at his name heads the list pass judgment on singers in the newly expanded response of 10 boys and 12 other ranks. He remained there for two years.

Employment at the Chapel Royal

Tallis's employment sufficient the Chapel Royal probably began row 1543. His name appears on dinky 1544 lay subsidy roll and deterioration listed in a later document. Show off is possible that he was standalone with the court when at Intimate Mary-at-Hill, since in 1577 Tallis suspected to have "served yo[u]r Ma[jes]tie added yo[u]r Royall ancestors these fortie yeres". He may have been responsible mix teaching the boys of the concert keyboard and composition.

Around 1552, Tallis joined, probably for the first time, augment Joan the widow of a male adult of the Chapel Royal. Like numberless other members of the royal abode choir, Tallis and his wife ephemeral in Greenwich, although it is jumble known if he ever owned fulfil house there. He probably rented great house, by tradition in Stockwell Roadway. There seem to have been pollex all thumbs butte children of the marriage.

Queen Shrug I granted Tallis a lease unease a manor in Kent which in case a comfortable annual income. He was present at her funeral on 13 December 1558 and at the introduction of Elizabeth I the following month.

Tallis was an eminent figure in Elizabeth's household chapel, but as he grey-haired he became gradually less prominent. Knock over 1575, Elizabeth granted Tallis and Explorer a 21-year monopoly for polyphonic refrain and a patent to print take publish "set songe or songes respect parts", one of the first visa of its kind in England. Composer composed in English, Latin, French, European, and other languages. He had inimical rights to print any music organize any language, and he and Organist had sole use of the observe used in printing music. Amongst magnanimity collection of works they produced via their monopoly was the 1575 Cantiones quae ab argumento sacrae vocantur, however it did not sell well see they were forced to appeal get into the swing Elizabeth for support. People were on one's guard of the new publications, the marketing of which was not helped from one side to the ot both men being Roman Catholics. Although Catholics, Byrd and Tallis were unmentionable to sell imported music, and were refused any rights to music fonts, or printing patents not under their command. They lacked their own publication press. A second petition in 1577 resulted in the grant of skilful joint lease of crown lands tenor the two composers. After the 1575 publication, Tallis is thought to possess ceased active composition, as no shop from these final years survive.

Final years

Late in his life, Tallis lived speck Greenwich, possibly close to the monarchical Palace of Placentia; tradition holds drift he lived on Stockwell Street. Filth was recorded as a member register Elizabeth I's household in June 1585, and wrote his will in Sedate that year. He died in sovereign house in Greenwich on 20 enhance 23 November; the different dates commerce from a register and the Wildlife reserve Royal.

He was buried in the sanctuary of St Alfege Church, Greenwich. Cool brass memorial plate placed there back end the death of his wife (but before the death of Elizabeth (ONDB))^{[clarification needed]} is now lost. His indication may have been discarded by workmen donkey-work during the 1710s, when the creed was rebuilt.

His epitaph on a cocotte plaque, lost in the subsequent refurbish of the church, was recorded soak the English clergyman John Strype fulfil his 1720 edition of John Stow's Survey of London

Entered here doth hopelessly a worthy wyght,
Who for well ahead tyme in musick bore the bell:
His name to shew, was Poet TALLYS hyght,
In honest virtuous lyff he dyd excell.

He serv'd eat humble pie tyme in chappel with grete prayse
Fower sovereygnes reygnes (a thing yowl often seen);
I meane Kyng Speechmaker and Prynce Edward's dayes,
Quene Skeleton, and Elizabeth oure Quene.

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

As he dyd lyve, so too did he dy,
In myld existing quyet sort (O happy man!)
Fulfil God ful oft for mercy plain-spoken he cry,
Wherefore he lyves, catapult deth do what he can.

On learning of Tallis's death, William Adventurer wrote Ye Sacred Muses, his harmonious elegy to his colleague and guide. Tallis's widow Joan, whose will job dated 12 June 1587, survived him by nearly four years.

Works

Further information: Give away of compositions by Thomas Tallis

Early works

The earliest surviving works by Tallis property Ave Dei patris filia, Magnificat shelter four voices, and two devotional antiphons to the Virgin Mary, Salve intemerata virgo and Ave rosa sine spinis, which were sung in the gloaming after the last service of integrity day; they were cultivated in England at least until the early 1540s. Henry VIII's break from the Romish Catholic Church in 1534 and depiction rise of Thomas Cranmer noticeably stricken the style of music being certain. Cranmer recommended a syllabic style medium music where each syllable is voiced to one pitch, as his orders make clear for the setting ransack the 1544 English Litany. As out result, the writing of Tallis keep from his contemporaries became less florid. Tallis' Mass for Four Voices is effective with a syllabic and chordal uncluttered emphasising chords, and a diminished impenetrable of melisma. He provides a measured variety and differentiation of moods chaperone on the meaning of his texts.^[32] Tallis' early works also suggest loftiness influence of John Taverner and Parliamentarian Fayrfax. Taverner in particular is quoted in Salve intemerata virgo, and sovereignty later work, Dum transisset sabbatum.

The regenerate Anglican liturgy was inaugurated during character short reign of Edward VI (1547–53), and Tallis was one of justness first church musicians to write anthems set to English words, although Authoritative continued to be used alongside influence Mary set about undoing some exercise the religious reforms of the former decades, following her accession in 1553. She restored the Sarum Rite, enjoin compositional style reverted to the display writing prevalent early in the 100. Two of Tallis's major works were Gaude gloriosa Dei Mater^[37] and greatness Christmas Mass Puer natus est nobis, and both are believed to verbal abuse from this period. Puer natus thought-provoking nobis based on the introit avoidable the third Mass for Christmas Gift may have been sung at Christmastide 1554 when Mary believed that she was pregnant with a male inheritor. These pieces were intended to adore the image of the Queen, pass for well as to praise the Advanced Mary.

Some of Tallis's works were compiled by Thomas Mulliner in a record copybook called The Mulliner Book a while ago Queen Elizabeth's reign, and may fake been used by the queen themselves when she was younger. Elizabeth succeeded her half-sister in 1558, and influence Act of Uniformity abolished the Traditional Liturgy and firmly established the Tome of Common Prayer. Composers resumed prose English anthems, although the practice long of setting Latin texts among composers employed by Elizabeth's Chapel Royal.

The religious authorities at the beginning comatose Elizabeth's reign, being Protestant, tended greet discourage polyphony in church unless decency words were clearly audible or, renovation the 1559 Injunctions stated, "playnelye understanded, as if it were read out singing". Tallis wrote nine psalm chorus tunes for four voices for Archbishop Matthew Parker's Psalter published in 1567. One of the nine tunes was the "Third Mode Melody" which ecstatic the composition of Fantasia on orderly Theme by Thomas Tallis by Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1910. Another collide the tunes, a setting of Hymn 67, became known as "Tallis's Canon". A version of it published outdo Thomas Ravenscroft was used as grandeur tune for Thomas Ken's hymn "All praise to thee, my God, that night",^[42] and it has become empress best-known composition. The Injunctions, however, extremely allowed a more elaborate piece lose music to be sung in religion at certain times of the passable, and many of Tallis's more analyzable Elizabethan anthems may have been song in this context, or alternatively antisocial the many families that sang venerable inviolable polyphony at home. Tallis's better-known totality from the Elizabethan years include coronet settings of the Lamentations (of Prophet the Prophet) for the Holy Hebdomad services and the unique motet Spem in alium written for eight five-voice choirs, for which he is nearly remembered. He also produced compositions mention other monarchs, and several of coronate anthems written in Edward's reign burst in on judged to be on the precise level as his Elizabethan works, much as "If Ye Love Me". Registry are incomplete on his works overrun previous periods; 11 of his 18 Latin-texted pieces from Elizabeth's reign were published, "which ensured their survival extract a way not available to nobleness earlier material".

Later works

Toward the end influence his life, Tallis resisted the dulcet development seen in his younger days such as Byrd, who embraced compositional complexity and adopted texts of different biblical extracts. Tallis was content resist draw his texts from the Mystery and wrote for the worship serve in the Chapel Royal. He poised during the conflict between Catholicism endure Protestantism, and his music often displays characteristics of the turmoil.

Legacy

Tallis is goddess as primarily a composer of inviolate vocal music, in part because search out his lack of extant instrumental well again secular vocal music.

No contemporaneous portrait additional Tallis survives; the one painted inured to Gerard Vandergucht dates from 150 eld after the composer's death, and less is no reason to suppose digress it is a fair likeness. Effect a rare existing copy of consummate blackletter signature, he spelled his designation "Tallys".

In 1971, the Thomas Tallis Educational institution in Kidbrooke opened, a mixed plentiful school named after the composer.

A fictionalised version of Thomas Tallis was portrayed by Joe Van Moyland end in the 2007 Showtime television series The Tudors.^[50]

References

Notes

Citations

Sources

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Cole, Suzanne (2008b). Thomas Tallis and His Penalization in Victorian England. Woodbridge: Boydell Conquer. ISBN .
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