Thomas Tallis
Thomas Tallis (c. 1505 – 23 November 1585;[n 1] also Tallys or Talles) was an English composer of High Renaissance music. His compositions are primarily vocal, and he occupies a primary place in anthologies of English choral music. Tallis is considered one of England's greatest composers, and is honoured for his original voice in English musicianship.[2]
Thomas Tallis
Life[edit]
Youth[edit]
As no records about the birth, family or childhood of Thomas Tallis exist, almost nothing is known about his early life or origins. Historians have calculated that he was born in the early part of the 16th century, towards the end of the reign of Henry VII of England, and estimates for the year of his birth range from 1500 to 1520.[3] His only known relative was a cousin called John Sayer. As the surnames Sayer and Tallis both have strong connections with Kent, Thomas Tallis is usually thought to have been born somewhere in the county.[4]
There are suggestions that Tallis sang as a child of the chapel in the Chapel Royal, the same singing establishment which he joined as an adult.[5][6] He was probably a chorister at the Benedictine Priory of St. Mary the Virgin and St. Martin of the New Work, in Dover, where he was employed at an early age, but it is impossible to know whether he was educated there. He may have sung at Canterbury Cathedral.[7]
Career[edit]
Tallis served at court as a composer and performer for Henry VIII,[8] Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I.[9] He was first designated as an organist at the chapel after 1570, although he would have been employed as an organist throughout his career.[10]
He avoided the religious controversies that raged around him throughout his service to successive monarchs, though he remained, in the words of the historian Peter Ackroyd, an "unreformed Roman Catholic".[11] Tallis was capable of switching the style of his compositions to suit each monarch's different demands.[12] He stood out among other important composers of the time, including Christopher Tye and Robert White. The author and composer Ernest Walker wrote that "he had more versatility of style" than Tye and White, and "his general handling of his material was more consistently easy and certain".[13] Tallis taught the composer William Byrd, as later associated with Lincoln Cathedral; as also Elway Bevin, an organist of Bristol Cathedral and Gentleman of the Chapel Royal.[14]
Legacy[edit]
Tallis is remembered as primarily a composer of sacred vocal music, in part because of his lack of extant instrumental or secular vocal music.[48]
No contemporaneous portrait of Tallis survives; the one painted by Gerard Vandergucht dates from 150 years after the composer's death, and there is no reason to suppose that it is a fair likeness. In a rare existing copy of his blackletter signature, he spelled his name "Tallys".[49]
In 1971, the Thomas Tallis School in Kidbrooke opened. A mixed comprehensive school named after the composer.
A fictionalised version of Thomas Tallis was portrayed by Joe Van Moyland in the 2007 Showtime television series The Tudors.[50]