Thomas Tallis under the reign of Queen Elizabeth found himself in the conflicted position of serving an Anglican Church whose official language was English, yet able and perhaps by some encouraged to write music in the old "popish" language of Latin. The older Roman Catholic faith may or may not have still held personal meaning for Tallis. Nonetheless, his later Latin church music gave liturgical voice not only to recusant Catholics, but also to a more "high church" fashion within courtly circles. Thus Tallis could publish a complete collection of Latin liturgical settings in 1575 as the Cantiones Sacrae. Some of these Latin-texted pieces, such as the hymns Sermone blando and his two settings of Te lucis ante terminum even go so far as to quote Anglo-Catholic plainchant, and only make sense within a Roman/ Latin liturgical context. Perhaps as with William Byrd, the more famous recusant musician, Tallis retained his deep sympathies for Catholic worshippers in Elizabethan England.

The chant hymn Te lucis ante terminum is sung within the Catholic liturgy at the close of Compline, on all ferial (non-festal) Sundays of the year. In the 1575 print, Tallis offers two settings of the text to allow some flexibility as the piece is so often repeated throughout the year. Both settings are simple and homophonic, though both use the full textures of five voices. Both settings are in alternatim style, for which the choir would sing the odd-numbered verses in chant, and the even-numbered verses to Tallis' music. Both settings incorporate the hymn chant into the top voice, though the first setting hews much more closely to its melody. The first setting also is mildly more extended, as the lower voices give each phrase of the hymn a brief introduction. This allows Tallis some freedom for compositional flair, such as the rich and surprisingly foreign A flat chord with which he introduces the third phrase.

© All Music Guide

Portions of Content Provided by All Music Guide.
© 2008 All Media Guide, LLC. All Music Guide is a registered trademark of All Media Guide, LLC.