CotW Thomas Tallis

[ardcarp]

OK this isn't the CotW thread, but the week's programmes may be of special interest to folks on The Choir.

First item today was O Sacrum Convivium sung beautifully by NCO/Higginbottom.

[Vox Humana]

It was really good to hear Tallis getting his due. I really enjoyed the performances. OK, two or three of them were not totally top-drawer, but the slight imperfections didn't trouble me: it's good to hear the variety of styles on disc from performers I might not otherwise seek out. I was particularly captivated by the superb performance of the the well-known Litany by Alamire. It didn't half go on, but that's what it does if you do the whole thing. How any singer manages to stop the pitch from slipping I don't know.

But the commentary: oh dear, oh dear, oh dear! I can't speak for the picture painted of Tudor life (which I found helpful and interesting), but the commentaries on the pieces were so riddled with errors that I lost count. O sacrum convivium isn't Elizabethan: it had already achieved its motet form by 1555, having been composed by cannibalising an earlier instrumental fantasia. The Lamentations are not the 'first two movements' of anything, they're the only ones. (IMO they are surely two different motets, although possibly composed together.) Euge caeli porta is not a 'hymn': it is a fragment from an otherwise lost setting of the sequence Ave praeclara. All that was just from Monday's episode. The tremendous Gaude gloriosa (not the longest Tudor votive antiphon) is now thought to be Henrician, since there's a five-part contrafactum of it to words by Katherine Parr that almost certainly dates from the reign of Edward VI. Then, for some unexplained reason (I suspect inattentiveness), we heard the Agnus Dei from the Puer natus est nobis mass twice: once on Tuesday and again on Thursday, when it was billed just as an excerpt from the mass Why? Surely we could have been given the Gloria or Sanctus instead? On the Tuesday it was described as 'the Agnus Dei from Caeleste organum'—a result of a failure to understand the track listing on the back of the CD—so I wonder whether Macleod actually listened to the tracks before compiling his list. Most of this could have been avoided simply by reading the liner notes of the CDs carefully.

I was pleased to hear a plug for Kerry McCarthy's excellent and eminently readable 'Master Musicians' book on Tallis. Highly recommended. (Her companion book on Byrd is even more readable.)

I despair of ever hearing a broadcast of Tallis's well-known 3rd psalm tune with the correct accidentals because Vaughan Williams's interpretation has become so ingrained that it will probably be impossible to shift. (RVW transcribed what he saw, but what he saw was the result of John Day's sloppy printing with an inadequate font set). This performance gets it right: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKDWsO-SvVc

[ardcarp]

O sacrum convivium isn't Elizabethan: it had already achieved its motet form by 1555, having been composed by cannibalising an earlier instrumental fantasia. The Lamentations are not the 'first two movements' of anything

Yes I shuddered in despair about those egregious statements! Thank you also,Vox, for pointing out the other inaccuraacies.

[DracoM]

<< the commentaries on the pieces were so riddled with errors that I lost count. O sacrum convivium isn't Elizabethan: it had already achieved its motet form by 1555, having been composed by cannibalising an earlier instrumental fantasia. The Lamentations are not the 'first two movements' of anything >>

Yes, oh YES!!

[teamsaint]

I can’t find another specifically Tallis thread, so putting this here.
Does anybody have good CD recommendations, and maybe a bit of good reading on his music please. I have the Oxford Camerata Motets and Mass disc but not a great deal other than that.

( Incidentally, what a century it must have been to live in. I suspect that , as so often, our understanding of how everyday life was and developed is very sketchy).

[Pulcinella]

I can’t find another specifically Tallis thread, so putting this here.
Does anybody have good CD recommendations, and maybe a bit of good reading on his music please. I have the Oxford Camerata Motets and Mass disc but not a great deal other than that.

( Incidentally, what a century it must have been to live in. I suspect that , as so often, our understanding of how everyday life was and developed is very sketchy).

You could try this, but I must confess to not giving it five stars, as the reviewers did.
I didn't particularly rate her book on Byrd either, for that matter.
Both too speculative for my liking.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tallis-MASTER-MUSICIANS-Kerry-McCarthy-ebook/dp/B08D3VVMXP/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2E32X8D7T1DKN&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.FNLGFuXWKzncAbBAtPzGHvPfrhie3MwqAGstDpePrPmuEoKFZ1FhBniqXl2Gpg86FGV39BXCyPmhqI2cRqH07g.o9OpGfP9nE8BEcTMhp81UmIFyU0HO-xIkBW8XyevTSQ&dib_tag=se&keywords=Kerry+tallis&qid=1738261076&sprefix=kerry+tallis%2Caps%2C69&sr=8-1

[teamsaint]

Thanks Pulcers. Got to love Amazon reviews.


” Beautifully written
followed by”
” Not well written “


I’ll see if I can get it free on Kindle unlimited

[Vox Humana]

You could try this, but I must confess to not giving it five stars, as the reviewers did.
I didn't particularly rate her book on Byrd either, for that matter.
Both too speculative for my liking.

Really? I can't say they struck me that way. What did you find speculative? Personally I thought both books well documented and excellent distillations of current scholarship. I rate Dr McCarthy's book on Tallis very highly, her book on Byrd even more so. The Byrd book really is very readable and everything one hopes for in OUP's 'Master Musicians' series. McCarthy wears her scholarship very lightly and it's bang up-to-date. Tallis is much more difficult to write about because we know so little about him as a person. But McCarthy does well in painting a picture of Tallis's world.* Alternatively, there's John Harley's book on Tallis. It's less gripping, but a little more forensic, although unfortunately his speculative chronology of Tallis's compositions was shot to pieces almost as soon as the book was published by a seminar on the composer (with some papers subsequently published in Early Music).

For recordings I highly recommend the two CDs by Andrew Parrott and the Taverner Choir and Consort if you can find them - one of responsories and hymns, the other of motets. Originally two separate CDs, they were later reissued as a double CD, but without the useful liner essays.

David Skinner's Alamire recorded this one which is very fine. Alamire has also recorded the Byrd/Talis Cantiones Sacrae of 1575 which I've not listened to much, but I have enjoyed.

I'm still fond of this old recording of Tallis and Sheppard by the Clerkes of Oxenford. Wulstan's pitch theory has been thoroughly debunked, but I like his interpretations. The performances are less meticulous but have more warmth than some professional groups (partly because the Clerkes were a bigger choir).

I was introduced to Tallis in my teens by two LPs of King's College, Cambridge under Willcocks. These can still be had on remastered CDs. I love the reverence and atmosphere of the performances, but the sound and style probably won't cut the mustard for most these days.

* I was pleased to see that one of the five-star reviews on Amazon is by an early music academic.

[cat]

This one is a gem - I believe the only other recoding of this is by Oxford Camerata, so maybe that's the one you have, but if so could be worth comparing the two recordings.

Thanks Pulcers. Got to love Amazon reviews.


” Beautifully written
followed by”
” Not well written “


I’ll see if I can get it free on Kindle unlimited

At least they reviewed the item, I sometimes find reviews along the lines of "4 stars - I ordered this as a gift so obviously have not opened it"

[Pulcinella]

Really? I can't say they struck me that way. What did you find speculative? Personally I thought both books well documented and excellent distillations of current scholarship. I rate Dr McCarthy's book on Tallis very highly, her book on Byrd even more so. The Byrd book really is very readable and everything one hopes for in OUP's 'Master Musicians' series. McCarthy wears her scholarship very lightly and it's bang up-to-date. Tallis is much more difficult to write about because we know so little about him as a person. But McCarthy does well in painting a picture of Tallis's world.* Alternatively, there's John Harley's book on Tallis. It's less gripping, but a little more forensic, although unfortunately his speculative chronology of Tallis's compositions was shot to pieces almost as soon as the book was published by a seminar on the composer (with some papers subsequently published in Early Music).
....

Far too much of the 'Tallis (Byrd) may have....' style of writing about things that I found didn't matter either way in any event.
I actually found them both superficial rather than distilled; I gave up on the Tallis.
But each to their own; a good friend of mine rates them (and her) highly too.

[Vox Humana]

Far too much of the 'Tallis (Byrd) may have....' style of writing about things that I found didn't matter either way in any event.
I actually found them both superficial rather than distilled; I gave up on the Tallis.

OK, but I do wonder whether you were expecting too much. With, say, Bach, and even more with the mainstream composers who came after him, there is a wealth of information that one can stitch together to produce a coherent narrative. If you confine yourself so narrowly with people like Tallis, you are going to end up with a very short book indeed because there is so little that is actually certain. Inevitably, if you can't be certain you are going to fall back on maybes. History is full of uncertainties. That is why historians so often disagree with each other.

[Keraulophone]

John Harley (2020)Thomas Tallis (Routledge) 296pp - bought this for my daughter who loves Tallis's music above all others.

'John Harley’s Thomas Tallis is the first full-length book to deal comprehensively with the composer’s life and works. Tallis entered the Chapel Royal in the middle of a long life, and remained there for over 40 years. During a colourful period of English history he famously served King Henry VIII and the three of Henry’s children who followed him to the throne. His importance for English music during the second half of the sixteenth century is equalled only by that of his pupil, colleague and friend William Byrd. In a series of chronological chapters, Harley describes Tallis’s career before and after he entered the Chapel. The fully considered biography is placed in the context of larger political and cultural changes of the period. Each monarch’s reign is treated with an examination of the ways in which Tallis met its particular musical needs. Consideration is given to all of Tallis’s surviving compositions, including those probably intended for patrons and amateurs beyond the court, and attention is paid to the context within which they were written. Tallis emerges as a composer whose music displays his special ability in setting words and creating ingenious musical patterns. A table places most of Tallis’s compositions in a broad chronological order.'

"This is a coherent and carefully-thought-out book (...) The new thoughts presented in these essays contribute to an ongoing discussion that has been gathering momentum for some years (...) Harley’s book is very welcome: any choir director planning to perform a work by Tallis should consult it." - Richard Rastall, The Consort Early Music Journal, vol.73, Summer 2017
(from Amazon)

The David Wulstan/Clerks of Oxenford LP on EMI/Classics for Pleasure was a much-loved recording, as was their Sheppard follow-up. The Tallis Scholars took up their mantle in Oxford (concerts in Merton Chapel) but some of their recordings, though well sung and with good clarity, tend to lack expressive warmth.

We sang the wonderous Videte miraculum on Wednesday, to be repeated on Sunday for the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple, for which it was written (now Candlemass). [I'm enjoying depping!]

[Petrushka]

John Harley (2020)Thomas Tallis (Routledge) 296pp - bought this for my daughter who loves Tallis's music above all others.

'John Harley’s Thomas Tallis is the first full-length book to deal comprehensively with the composer’s life and works. Tallis entered the Chapel Royal in the middle of a long life, and remained there for over 40 years. During a colourful period of English history he famously served King Henry VIII and the three of Henry’s children who followed him to the throne. His importance for English music during the second half of the sixteenth century is equalled only by that of his pupil, colleague and friend William Byrd. In a series of chronological chapters, Harley describes Tallis’s career before and after he entered the Chapel. The fully considered biography is placed in the context of larger political and cultural changes of the period. Each monarch’s reign is treated with an examination of the ways in which Tallis met its particular musical needs. Consideration is given to all of Tallis’s surviving compositions, including those probably intended for patrons and amateurs beyond the court, and attention is paid to the context within which they were written. Tallis emerges as a composer whose music displays his special ability in setting words and creating ingenious musical patterns. A table places most of Tallis’s compositions in a broad chronological order.'

"This is a coherent and carefully-thought-out book (...) The new thoughts presented in these essays contribute to an ongoing discussion that has been gathering momentum for some years (...) Harley’s book is very welcome: any choir director planning to perform a work by Tallis should consult it." - Richard Rastall, The Consort Early Music Journal, vol.73, Summer 2017
(from Amazon)

The David Wulstan/Clerks of Oxenford LP on EMI/Classics for Pleasure was a much-loved recording, as was their Sheppard follow-up. The Tallis Scholars took up their mantle in Oxford (concerts in Merton Chapel) but some of their recordings, though well sung and with good clarity, tend to lack expressive warmth.

We sang the wonderous Videte miraculum on Wednesday, to be repeated on Sunday for the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple, for which it was written (now Candlemass). [I'm enjoying depping!]

Amazon have this book at £228.84 (hardcover) and £39.97 (paperback)!! What on earth is going on?

[Pulcinella]

OK, but I do wonder whether you were expecting too much. With, say, Bach, and even more with the mainstream composers who came after him, there is a wealth of information that one can stitch together to produce a coherent narrative. If you confine yourself so narrowly with people like Tallis, you are going to end up with a very short book indeed because there is so little that is actually certain. Inevitably, if you can't be certain you are going to fall back on maybes. History is full of uncertainties. That is why historians so often disagree with each other.

You might be right, but my memory is that I found her style irritating and repetitive; I'd have used a red pen a fair bit had I been her copyeditor!
I see that I gave up after chapter 10.
Maybe I should pass it on to ts and see which side of the Amazon divide he comes out on.

[Vox Humana]

Amazon have this book at £228.84 (hardcover) and £39.97 (paperback)!! What on earth is going on?

The days of Amazon offering the best deals is over, it seems. Both versions are cheaper from the publisher, though the hardback is still £108. Anyone else think Academic publishing is a right rip-off? A lot of academics think so.