The Reformation profoundly affected English church music, with late-medieval Latin polyphony, like Tallis's Salve intemerata, becoming outlawed during the reign of Edward VI.
Performer Biography
Oxford Camerata, the choir on this recording, gave its first concert in 1984 and has since performed throughout Europe and made thirty CD recordings.
Compositional Technique
The motet Salve intemerata, a setting of a long prose prayer to the Virgin Mary, is written for five voices in an expansively Catholic style.
Composition History
Tallis's forty-voice motet Spem in alium was composed after the Mantuan composer Alessandro Striggio brought a forty-part motet to London, prompting a challenge to English composers.
Compositional Technique
Tallis's Missa Salve intemerata borrows heavily from the motet of the same name, particularly in the Gloria and Credo, but shows a more concise and pragmatic style.
Composer Biography
Thomas Tallis, considered the finest English composer of his generation, served at court under four monarchs: Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth.
Recording & Production
This recording of Spem in alium was made using 'surround sound' with the forty voices arranged to form four sides of a St-Chad cross.
You might also enjoy...
Leipziger Disputation
Leipziger Disputation
South of the Line: Choral Music by John Joubert
Dialogues of Sorrow: Passions on the Death of Prince Henry, 1612
TAVERNER and TUDOR MUSIC I: The Western Wind
Cavalli: Missa pro Defunctis, Mottetti e Sonate
Spain and the New World - Renaissance music from Aragon and Mexico
O Radiant Dawn
Cantate Domino - La Cappella Sistina e la musica dei Papi
