Music : Classical : Lossless

 


Thomas Tallis (1505 - 1585)

The Complete Works, 10 CDs Box Set


Label: Brilliant Classics
Year: 2007



Performers:
Chapelle du Roi
Alistair Dixon - conductor




This fine complete set makes all music by Thomas Tallis easily accessible. The eight singers of the English ensemble Chapelle du Roi have dedicated themselves to religious Renaissance music for some thirteen years now. Their performances are being praised by audiences and critics alike. A rare treat. 

Renaissance composer Thomas Tallis (1505-1585) musically must have been quite a diplomat. He managed to serve four different monarchs in a row, including Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. He mainly wrote church music. The quality of his output ranges from undistinguished to absolutely first class. Today his 40-part motet Spem in alium has become renowned. 

Tallis enjoys his fame mainly in Anglo-Saxon countries. This set of his complete works should be able to enhance his reputation. The Chapelle du Roi under Alistair Dixon took several years to complete these 10 records. Each of these is dedicated to a part of Tallis’s works ordered by their origin or purpose: Music for Henry VIII, Music at the Reformation, etc.

Tallis is dead and music dies. So wrote William Byrd, Tallis's most distinguished pupil, capturing the esteem and veneration in which Tallis was held by his fellow composers and musical colleagues in the 16th century and, indeed, by the four monarchs he served at the Chapel Royal.

Tallis was undoubtedly the greatest of the 16th century composers; in craftsmanship, versatility and intensity of expression, the sheer uncluttered beauty and drama of his music reach out and speak directly to the listener. It is surprising that hitherto so little of Tallis's music has been regularly performed and that so much is not satisfactorily published.

This series of ten compact discs will cover Tallis's complete surviving output from his five decades of composition, and will include the contrafacta, the secular songs and the instrumental music - much of which is as yet unrecorded. Great attention is paid to performance detail including pitch, pronunciation and the music's liturgical context. As a result new editions of the music are required for the recordings, many of which will in time be published by the Cantiones Press.


Tracklist:

CD 1 - MUSIC FOR HENRY VIII
CD 2 - MUSIC AT THE REFORMATION
CD 3 - MUSIC FOR QUEEN MARY
CD 4 - MUSIC FOR THE DIVINE OFFICE 1
CD 5 - MUSIC FOR THE DIVINE OFFICE 2
CD 6 - MUSIC FOR A REFORMED CHURCH
CD 7 - MUSIC FOR QUEEN ELIZABETH
CD 8 - THE LAMENTATIONS AND CONTRAFACTA
CD 9 - THE INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC AND SONGS 1
CD 10 - THE INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC AND SONGS 2