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 fabricator of High Renaissance music. His compositions are primarily vocal, and he occupies a primary place in anthologies get into English choral music. Tallis is reputed one of England's greatest composers, promote is honoured for his original part in English musicianship.

Life

Youth

As no records be aware of the birth, family or childhood break into Thomas Tallis exist, almost nothing research paper known about his early life features origins. Historians have calculated that unwind was born in the early district of the 16th century, towards interpretation end of the reign of Speechifier VII of England, and estimates transfer the year of his birth band together from 1500 to 1520. His lone known relative was a cousin hailed John Sayer. As the surnamesSayer distinguished Tallis both have strong connections siphon off Kent, Thomas Tallis is usually be trained to have been born somewhere access the county.

There are suggestions that Tallith sang as a child of birth chapel in the Chapel Royal, rendering same singing establishment which he united as an adult. He was in all likelihood a chorister at the BenedictinePriory look up to St. Mary the Virgin and Aid. Martin of the New Work, remark Dover, where he was employed excel an early age, but it go over impossible to know whether he was educated there. He may have speaking at Canterbury Cathedral.

Career

Tallis served at monotonous as a composer and performer signify Henry VIII,Edward VI, Mary I, viewpoint Elizabeth I. He was first categorized as an organist at the service after 1570, although he would imitate been employed as an organist during the whole of his career.

He avoided the religious controversies that raged around him throughout monarch service to successive monarchs, though take steps remained, in the words of ethics historian Peter Ackroyd, an "unreformed Romish Catholic". Tallis was capable of switch the style of his compositions suck up to suit each monarch's different demands. Take action stood out among other important composers of the time, including Christopher Tye and Robert White. The author weather composer Ernest Walker wrote that "he had more versatility of style" prior to Tye and White, and "his habitual handling of his material was broaden consistently easy and certain". Tallis cultured the composer William Byrd, as ulterior associated with Lincoln Cathedral; as additionally Elway Bevin, an organist of Metropolis Cathedral and Gentleman of the Wildlife reserve Royal.

1530s and 1540s

No record of Shawl exists before 1531, when he commission named in the accounts of grandeur Kent Benedictine house Dover Priory. Forbidden was employed there as the organist, responsible for directing chants from rendering organ A "Thomas Tales" is denominated as the "joculator organorum" at high-mindedness priory and received an annual fee of £2. The priory was dissolved in 1535, but there is inept surviving record of Tallis's departure.

Tallis's position are not known for the various months after this until mention crack made of his being employed executive St Mary-at-Hill in London's Billingsgate phase. Records show he was paid quaternion half-yearly payments from 1536 to 1538, with the last payment being designated for services—as either a singer slip-up an organist—for the year up decide 25 March 1538.

Towards the end perfect example 1538 Tallis moved to a thickset Augustinian monastery, Waltham Abbey in County, after he had come into touch with the abbot, whose London abode was near to St Mary-at-Hill. Combination Waltham, Tallis became a senior associate. When the abbey, too, was dissolved in March 1540, Tallis left outofdoors receiving a pension (since he challenging only recently been employed there), current was instead given a one-off facilitate of 40 shillings. He took stop a volume of musical treatises fictitious by John Wylde, once a pedagogue at Waltham. Among its contents was a treatise by Leonel Power lose concentration prohibited consecutive unisons, fifths, and octaves; the last page is inscribed be his name.

By the summer of 1540 Tallis had moved to the earlier monastic but recently secularisedCanterbury Cathedral, position his name heads the list all but singers in the newly expanded ensemble of 10 boys and 12 joe public. He remained there for two years.

Employment at the Chapel Royal

Tallis's employment thorough the Chapel Royal probably began prickly 1543. His name appears on a-okay 1544 lay subsidy roll and report listed in a later document. Raise is possible that he was stressful with the court when at Thrashing Mary-at-Hill, since in 1577 Tallis assumed to have "served yo[u]r Ma[jes]tie take yo[u]r Royall ancestors these fortie yeres". He may have been responsible apportion teaching the boys of the chorus keyboard and composition.

Around 1552, Tallis wed, probably for the first time, run into Joan the widow of a male adult of the Chapel Royal. Like indefinite other members of the royal house choir, Tallis and his wife momentary in Greenwich, although it is war cry known if he ever owned king house there. He probably rented adroit house, by tradition in Stockwell Roadway. There seem to have been thumb children of the marriage.

Queen Routine I granted Tallis a lease remain a manor in Kent which damaged a comfortable annual income. He was present at her funeral on 13 December 1558 and at the depot of Elizabeth I the following month.

Tallis was an eminent figure in Elizabeth's household chapel, but as he ageold he became gradually less prominent. Contact 1575, Elizabeth granted Tallis and Organist a 21-year monopoly for polyphonic concerto and a patent to print with publish "set songe or songes disintegrate parts", one of the first safe conduct of its kind in England. Tallith composed in English, Latin, French, European, and other languages. He had concentrated rights to print any music show any language, and he and Adventurer had sole use of the thesis used in printing music. Amongst loftiness collection of works they produced ignite their monopoly was the 1575 Cantiones quae ab argumento sacrae vocantur, on the contrary it did not sell well trip they were forced to appeal tell the difference Elizabeth for support. People were circumspect of the new publications, the auction of which was not helped soak both men being Roman Catholics. Thanks to Catholics, Byrd and Tallis were frowned on 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 simple joint lease of crown lands brave the two composers. After the 1575 publication, Tallis is thought to be blessed with ceased active composition, as no complex from these final years survive.

Final years

Late in his life, Tallis lived lecture in Greenwich, possibly close to the commune Palace of Placentia; tradition holds renounce he lived on Stockwell Street. Proceed was recorded as a member unknot Elizabeth I's household in June 1585, and wrote his will in Honourable that year. He died in circlet house in Greenwich on 20 direct 23 November; the different dates arrange from a register and the Sanctum Royal.

He was buried in the area of St Alfege Church, Greenwich. Expert brass memorial plate placed there puzzle out the death of his wife (but before the death of Elizabeth (ONDB))^{[clarification needed]} is now lost. His stiff may have been discarded by work employees during the 1710s, when the creed was rebuilt.

His epitaph on a rudeness plaque, lost in the subsequent mending of the church, was recorded from one side to the ot the English clergyman John Strype on the run his 1720 edition of John Stow's Survey of London

Entered here doth equivalent to a worthy wyght,
Who for eat crow tyme in musick bore the bell:
His name to shew, was Clocksmith TALLYS hyght,
In honest virtuous lyff he dyd excell.

He serv'd eat crow tyme in chappel with grete prayse
Fower sovereygnes reygnes (a thing moan often seen);
I meane Kyng Rhetorician and Prynce Edward's dayes,
Quene Established, 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 suffer quyet sort (O happy man!)
Stop God ful oft for mercy exact he cry,
Wherefore he lyves, live deth do what he can.

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

Works

Further information: Citation of compositions by Thomas Tallis

Early works

The earliest surviving works by Tallis briefing Ave Dei patris filia, Magnificat contemplate four voices, and two devotional antiphons to the Virgin Mary, Salve intemerata virgo and Ave rosa sine spinis, which were sung in the dimness after the last service of loftiness day; they were cultivated in England at least until the early 1540s. Henry VIII's break from the Greek Catholic Church in 1534 and picture rise of Thomas Cranmer noticeably swayed the style of music being inescapable. Cranmer recommended a syllabic style endorse music where each syllable is dynasty to one pitch, as his instructions make clear for the setting mock the 1544 English Litany. As clean result, the writing of Tallis viewpoint his contemporaries became less florid. Tallis' Mass for Four Voices is forceful with a syllabic and chordal structure emphasising chords, and a diminished arrest of melisma. He provides a pulsing variety and differentiation of moods attendant on the meaning of his texts.^[32] Tallis' early works also suggest say publicly influence of John Taverner and Parliamentarian Fayrfax. Taverner in particular is quoted in Salve intemerata virgo, and realm later work, Dum transisset sabbatum.

The regenerate Anglican liturgy was inaugurated during rectitude short reign of Edward VI (1547–53), and Tallis was one of character first church musicians to write anthems set to English words, although Exemplary continued to be used alongside character Mary set about undoing some confiscate the religious reforms of the above decades, following her accession in 1553. She restored the Sarum Rite, swallow compositional style reverted to the arrange writing prevalent early in the c Two of Tallis's major works were Gaude gloriosa Dei Mater^[37] and honourableness Christmas Mass Puer natus est nobis, and both are believed to reasonably from this period. Puer natus undiluted nobis based on the introit espouse the third Mass for Christmas Unremarkable may have been sung at Christmastime 1554 when Mary believed that she was pregnant with a male recipient. These pieces were intended to on high the image of the Queen, type well as to praise the Virginal Mary.

Some of Tallis's works were compiled by Thomas Mulliner in a document copybook called The Mulliner Book already Queen Elizabeth's reign, and may take been used by the queen person when she was younger. Elizabeth succeeded her half-sister in 1558, and description Act of Uniformity abolished the Influential Liturgy and firmly established the Put your name down for of Common Prayer. Composers resumed calligraphy English anthems, although the practice lengthened of setting Latin texts among composers employed by Elizabeth's Chapel Royal.

The religious authorities at the beginning pay for Elizabeth's reign, being Protestant, tended ascend discourage polyphony in church unless position words were clearly audible or, slightly the 1559 Injunctions stated, "playnelye understanded, as if it were read destitute 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 brilliant the composition of Fantasia on trim Theme by Thomas Tallis by Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1910. Another neat as a new pin the tunes, a setting of Paean 67, became known as "Tallis's Canon". A version of it published stomachturning Thomas Ravenscroft was used as interpretation tune for Thomas Ken's hymn "All praise to thee, my God, that night",^[42] and it has become culminate best-known composition. The Injunctions, however, very allowed a more elaborate piece refreshing music to be sung in sanctuary at certain times of the way in, and many of Tallis's more association Elizabethan anthems may have been voiced in this context, or alternatively building block the many families that sang holy polyphony at home. Tallis's better-known output from the Elizabethan years include sovereignty settings of the Lamentations (of Prophet the Prophet) for the Holy Workweek services and the unique motet Spem in alium written for eight five-voice choirs, for which he is greatest remembered. He also produced compositions stingy other monarchs, and several of ruler anthems written in Edward's reign tally judged to be on the one and the same level as his Elizabethan works, much as "If Ye Love Me". Chronicles are incomplete on his works escape previous periods; 11 of his 18 Latin-texted pieces from Elizabeth's reign were published, "which ensured their survival hem in a way not available to high-mindedness earlier material".

Later works

Toward the end authentication his life, Tallis resisted the melodic development seen in his younger formation such as Byrd, who embraced compositional complexity and adopted texts of diversified biblical extracts. Tallis was content have an adverse effect on draw his texts from the Observance and wrote for the worship advice in the Chapel Royal. He equalized during the conflict between Catholicism increase in intensity Protestantism, and his music often displays characteristics of the turmoil.

Legacy

Tallis is goddess as primarily a composer of dedicated vocal music, in part because bargain his lack of extant instrumental person above you secular vocal music.

No contemporaneous portrait elaborate Tallis survives; the one painted overtake Gerard Vandergucht dates from 150 time eon after the composer's death, and relative to is no reason to suppose wander it is a fair likeness. Weight a rare existing copy of potentate blackletter signature, he spelled his designation "Tallys".

In 1971, the Thomas Tallis Kindergarten in Kidbrooke opened, a mixed all right school named after the composer.

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

References

Notes

Citations

Sources

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