VOX The new Chapter Secretary: Nick Gale [email protected] The Academy of St Cecilia Patrons: The Most Hon. The Marquess of Londonderry Dean and Education Advisor: Sir Peter Maxwell Davies CBE John McIntosh OBE Vice Patrons: James Bowman CBE, Naji Hakim, Monica Huggett [email protected] From the master Treasurer: Paula Chandler [email protected] elcome to the 2007 edition of Vox - the mouthpiece of the Academy of St Cecilia. Registrar: Jonathan Lycett We always welcome contributions from our members - [email protected] indeed without them Vox would not exist. In this edition we announce our restructured Chapter and its new members; feature a major article on Thomas Tallis Director of Communications: whose 500th anniversay falls at this time; and we Alistair Dixon review the Academy’s most major event to date, the [email protected] chant day held in June 2006. Our new address is: Composer in Residence: Nicholas O'Neill The Academy of St Cecilia Email: [email protected] C/o Music Department [email protected] Cathedral House Westminster Bridge Road Web site: LONDON SE1 7HY www.academyofsaintcecilia.com Archivist: Graham Hawkes Tel: 020 8265 6703 [email protected] ~ Page 1 ~ ~ Page 2 ~ Advisors to the Academy Thomas Tallis (c.1505 - 1585) Alistair Dixon, a member of the Chapter of the Academy, spent ten years studying and performing the music of Thomas Tallis. In 2005 Academic Advisor: he released the last in the series of recordings with his choir, Chapelle Dr Reinhard Strohm PhD (KU Berlin) FBA HonFASC. Heather Professor of Music Oxford University du Roi, of the Complete Works of Thomas Tallis in nine volumes. Reinhard Strom is one of Europe’s most distinguished musicologists and academics. He was born in Munich in 1942 and studied Musicology, Latin and Romance Literatures, and ollowing the death of Thomas Tallis in 1585 William Byrd wrote in his consort also plays the violin. He gained his Ph.D. in 1971 on ‘Italian song Ye sacred muses "Tallis is dead, and music dies" capturing the esteem and opera arias of the early 18th century’. From 1975-83 he was first veneration in which Tallis was held by his fellow composers and musical colleagues in Lecturer then Reader in Music at King’s College, London. From 1983-90 he was Professor of Musicology, Yale University before the 16th century and, indeed, by the four monarchs he served at the Chapel Royal. returning to King’s College London in 1990. In 1996 he was Tallis' claim to the 'crown' of English music is justified by his lasting appointed Heather Professor of Music at Oxford University influence on English musical composition; his un-paralleled versatility in style of composition, craftsmanship, and intensity of expression and the sheer uncluttered beauty and drama of his music. It is surprising that hitherto so little of Tallis' music has been regularly performed and that so much is not satisfactorily published. Tallis was appointed a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal in the early 1540s where he served for the next four decades under four monarchs and four political regimes: those of Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary and Elizabeth I. He was a supreme Education Advisor: craftsman, and unlike some of his contemporaries, his politics were that of adaptation. John McIntosh OBE MA FRSA HonFCP This contrasts with his elder contemporary John Taverner who ran into difficulties in HonFASC. Oxford because of his reformatory tendencies, and the younger William Byrd who was so fiercely counter-reformatory in the later years of the century. John McIntosh was Headmaster of the London Oratory School Seeing his duty as service to the prevailing political regime, Tallis continued for 29 years until his retirement on 31 December 2006. His early writing throughout; his surviving music holds up a mirror to the political changes of success at developing the Oratory school brought him to the attention of Margaret Thatcher and he was appointed to the the English sixteenth century. Conservative think tank, the Centre for Policy Studies Education Group in 1982; he became a member of its Council in 2005. Biography Between 1988 and 1991 he served on the Education Advisory Council of the Institute of Economic Affairs and on the Health Education Council between 1985 and 1988. He was made an Little information survives about Tallis' early life. His place of birth can only Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1996. be a matter of speculation but, since his first and third appointments - Dover and Canterbury - were in Kent, perhaps he was born in that county or not too far away? His year of birth is generally taken as c. 1505 but as Nick Sandon has shown a date ~ Page 3 ~ ~ Page 4 ~ of anything up to 1510 is quite possible. He would probably have been a chorister at secular cathedral and it is evident that the music at Canterbury was given great a cathedral or a similar institution and here he would have received his musical importance. Perhaps Tallis had some connections he could use from his Dover Priory grounding and presumably learnt to play the organ. days in order to gain a position on the musical staff, or perhaps his reputation was The first recorded biographical information we have is that in 1532 Tallis was already such that he was sought out by the cathedral? the organist of Dover Priory, a small community which was a daughter house of the Either way Tallis' career continued to flourish at Canterbury and it was only Benedictine monastery at Canterbury. Whilst Dover Priory was probably too small to two years later that he was appointed a Gentleman (singer) at the Chapel Royal. In the maintain a full professional choir there may never the less have been a small choir of Tudor age the Chapel Royal was the foremost musical institution in the land and men's voices. In any case the Canterbury connections would have provided Tallis with having been appointed to this most prestigious post Tallis was to remain there for the some further choral contact. next four decades until his death on 23rd November 1585. Tallis' departure from Dover must have been no later than 1535 since the Around 1552 Tallis married his wife, Joan, but it is evident that they had no monastery was dissolved in the autumn of that year following a visit by the King's children. Commissioners. As was customary for members of the Royal Household at that time, Tallis Tallis' next appointment was at the London Church of St Mary-at-Hill in the was buried in the parish church of St Alfege in Greenwich, next to the Royal Palace. City of London. (The proximity of St Mary's to Pudding Lane resulted in its His epitaph gives many clues to his personality and the esteem in which he was held destruction in the great fire of 1666 and it was rebuilt by Christopher Wren; remains by his contemporaries: of the old church can still be seen). Records show that Tallis was employed in 1537-8 though it is not specified in what capacity - organist or singer. This appointment was Enterred here doth ly a worthy wight , significant for the development of Tallis' career since the musicians at St Mary-at-Hill Who for long tyme in music bore the Bell; are known to have had strong connections with their counterparts at the Chapel His name to shew was Thomas Tallys hyght; Royal, and musicians from the Chapel were employed to augment the parish choir on In honest virtuous lyff he did excell. He served long tyme in Chapell with grate prayse, special occasions. Indeed, Robert Okeland, later to be one of Tallis' colleagues in the I mean King Henry and Prynce Edward's dayes, Chapel Royal, had been organist of St Mary's in 1534-5, and William Mundy who was Quene Mary and Elizabeth our Quene. to join Tallis later at the Chapel Royal was also employed at St Mary's. He maryed was, though children he had none, Tallis' next move was to take up an appointment at the Augustinian Abbey And lived in Love full three and thirty Yere, Church at Waltham Cross, nearly 20 miles north of London. From his absence in the With loyal Spowse, whose name yclipt was Jone, records at St Mary-at-Hill we can surmise that this move was around the autumn of Who here entomb'd now company him bears. 1538. As he did lyve, so also did he dy, Waltham Abbey was a wealthy institution and maintained a Lady Chapel In mild and quyet sort, O! happy man. choir of professional singers. (Musicians were not Members of the monastic To God ful oft for mercy did he cry, Wherefore he lyves, let Death do what he can. communities they served and were therefore typically only allowed in the Lady Chapels of the Abbeys in which they worked) No portrait of Thomas Tallis survives from his lifetime. Tallis' tenure at Waltham was short lived, however, as Henry VIII's The familiar picture that exists in a pair with a portrait of programme of dissolution of the monasteries was now underway. In March 1540 William Byrd is in fact an 18th century engraving from a Waltham became the last Abbey in England to be dissolved but unlike many others it book by N. T. Haym (1679-1729). It depicts Tallis as a was not refounded as a cathedral. Tallis' payoff was 20 shillings in lieu of wages and a young man in clothes and a hairstyle that are about a similar amount as a "reward" for his services.