Tallis: Queen Katherine Parr & Songs of Reformation

Featuring

David Skinner
Alamire
Fretwork
Thomas Tallis
William Byrd

Did you know?

1/7

Composition History

The album features a newly identified work, "Se lord and behold," a contrafact of Tallis's "Gaude gloriosa," with text by Queen Katherine Parr, Henry VIII's sixth wife.

Compositional Technique

Tallis's "Litany" is notable as the earliest known polyphonic setting of a liturgical text in the English vernacular.

Composition History

Thomas Tallis, a composer of the Chapel Royal, set Cranmer's English Litany to a five-part polyphonic version for its first performance in 1544.

Performer Biography

Alamire, directed by David Skinner, won the Gramophone Award (Early Music) in 2015 for their album "The Spy's Choirbook."

Performer Biography

Fretwork, a viol ensemble, has an extraordinary breadth of repertoire, from 1501 to newly commissioned music, and their recordings of English viol repertoire are considered benchmarks.

Historical Context

The English Litany, adapted and translated by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, was first performed in May 1544 at St Paul's Cathedral to stir public prayer for Henry VIII's war efforts.

Composition History

Music fragments found in 1978 behind plasterwork at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, revealed an early version of Tallis's "Gaude gloriosa" with English text by Queen Katherine Parr.