Page 46 - (DK) The Classical Music Book - Big Ideas Simply Explained
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HEARE THE
VOYCE AND
PRAYER
SPEM IN ALIUM (c. 1570), THOMAS TALLIS
he composition of the great mission from the Medici court in
IN CONTEXT 40-voice motet Spem in Florence, bringing with him the
T alium by Thomas Tallis parts for his recent compositions
FOCUS marked a pinnacle of early English for 40 or more independent voices.
Large-scale choral music
Renaissance choral music and These were musical manifestations
BEFORE was an inspired response to a of influence and power, and some
c. 1500 French composer continental challenge. In 1567, the wondered what the result might
Antoine Brumel writes a composer Alessandro Striggio had be if an English composer were
Mass in 12 parts, Missa Et arrived in England on a diplomatic to attempt such a composition.
ecce terrae motus, known They turned to Tallis, who had
as the “Earthquake Mass.” been the foremost court composer
under four monarchs—Henry VIII,
1568 Alessandro Striggio’s Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I.
motet Ecce beatam lucem for Tallis’s Roman Catholic patron,
40 voices with instruments Thomas Howard, Fourth Duke of
is performed in Munich. Norfolk, commissioned the work.
AFTER A long choral tradition
1682 Heinrich Biber composes The English had long excelled
his Missa Salisburgensis in 53 at choral music. In the 15th century,
parts arranged in six choirs of John Dunstable established the
singers, strings, recorders, contenance angloise (“English
cornetts, and sackbuts, with manner”), a distinctive, richly
two ensembles of trumpets harmonic polyphonic style.
and timpani, and at least Flemish music theorist Johannes
two organs—probably the Tinctoris described Dunstable
largest work in the Colossal as “the fountain and source” of
Baroque style, the name musical innovation.
given to large-scale, poly- A generation before Tallis,
choral works. A chapel choir sings from sheet Robert Fayrfax was the leading
music displayed on a lectern in the English composer and a favorite
frontispiece of Practica musicae by of Henry VIII. He was the organist
the Italian music theorist Franchini and Master of the Choristers at
di Gaffurio, published in 1512. St. Albans Abbey from 1498 to 1502
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