Thomas Tallis ( / ˈ t æ l ɪ s / ; also spelled Tallys or Talles ; born around 1505 – died 23 November 1585 ) was an English composer who lived during the Renaissance period. He mostly wrote music for voices, and his work is often included in collections of English choral music. Tallis is recognized as one of England's greatest composers and is noted for his unique style in English music.
Life
Thomas Tallis was born in the early 1500s, near the end of the rule of King Henry VII of England. Historians estimate his birth year to be between 1500 and 1520. His only known relative was a cousin named John Sayer. Since both the Sayer and Tallis family names are linked to the county of Kent, it is believed Thomas was born there. No records exist about his early life, family, or childhood.
Some historians think Thomas sang in the Chapel Royal as a child, the same place he later worked as an adult. He may have been a chorister at the Benedictine Priory of St. Mary the Virgin and St. Martin of the New Work in Dover, where he was later employed. However, it is unclear if he was educated there. He may also have sung at Canterbury Cathedral.
Tallis worked as a composer, teacher, and performer for several English kings, including Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I. He became an organist at the Chapel Royal after 1570 and likely held this position for most of his career.
Tallis avoided religious conflicts during his time at court, though he remained a Roman Catholic, as noted by historian Peter Ackroyd. He adapted his music to match the needs of each ruler. He taught other composers, including William Byrd, Elway Bevin, and Sir Ferdinando Heybourne.
No records of Tallis’s career exist before 1531, when he was named in the accounts of Dover Priory in Kent. He worked there as an organist, directing chants and managing six singing boys. The priory was dissolved in 1535, but no records of his departure remain.
After leaving Dover Priory, Tallis worked at St. Mary-at-Hill in London’s Billingsgate ward from 1536 to 1538. He received payments for his work as a singer or organist. In late 1538, he moved to Waltham Abbey in Essex, where he became a senior member. The abbey was dissolved in 1540, and Tallis left without a pension but received a one-time payment of 40 shillings. He took with him a book of musical writings, including a treatise by Leonel Power.
By 1540, Tallis moved to Canterbury Cathedral, where he led a newly expanded choir. He stayed there for two years. His employment at the Chapel Royal likely began in 1543. He was listed in a 1544 document and later claimed to have served the royal family for 40 years.
In the 1550s, Tallis married Joan, the widow of a Chapel Royal member. They lived in Greenwich, though it is unclear if he owned a home there. He likely rented a house on Stockwell Street. They had no children. William Byrd, a student of Tallis, later became his godson.
Queen Mary I gave Tallis a lease on a Kent manor, providing him with income. He attended her funeral in 1558 and Elizabeth I’s coronation in 1559. A Requiem he composed for Mary’s funeral was lost.
Tallis was a respected figure in Elizabeth I’s chapel but became less prominent as he aged. In 1575, Elizabeth granted him and Byrd a 21-year monopoly to print polyphonic music. They were allowed to publish music in any language and had exclusive use of printing paper. Their only publication, Cantiones quae ab argumento sacrae vocantur, was not successful. They later received a joint lease on crown lands.
After 1575, no works from Tallis’s final years survive. His last compositions, In Jejunio and Derelinquat Impius, suggest he was involved with Catholic communities facing persecution. He was associated with Anthony Roper, a wealthy recusant.
Tallis lived in Greenwich near the Palace of Placentia and was recorded as part of Elizabeth I’s household in 1585. He wrote his will in August 1585 and died in November 1585. He was buried in St. Alfege Church, Greenwich. A brass memorial for him was later lost.
Works
The earliest surviving works by Thomas Tallis include Alleluia: Ora pro nobis, Euge Caeli Porta, Magnificat for four voices, and three devotional antiphons to the Virgin Mary: Salve intemerata, Ave Dei Patris filia, and Ave rosa sine spinis. Salve intemerata is a notable early work, with the oldest manuscript dating to the 1520s (London, British Library, Ms. Harley 1709). Votive antiphons were sung in the evening after the last service of the day. Tallis’s early compositions were all written in the English Votive Style, which was common in England from the 1470s to the 1540s. He used antiphons by John Taverner and Robert Fayrfax as models for his own work. Taverner’s style is clearly heard in Salve intemerata and Dum transisset sabbatum. By the 1530s, the English Votive Style, which featured high, sustained treble lines and long solo verses, was being replaced by the shorter phrasing of continental traditions. This shift made Missa Salve Intemerata (Tallis’s first complete mass and his only parody mass) more modern in technique than the antiphon it was based on.
Gaude gloriosa Dei mater was once thought to be a revivalist votive antiphon composed for Queen Mary I, similar to William Mundy’s Vox Patris caelestis. This belief arose because Gaude gloriosa is more advanced than other early works by Tallis, suggesting it was written by a more mature composer. However, after renovations at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, in 1978, earlier fragments of Gaude gloriosa were discovered. These fragments use an English text translated by Queen Katherine Parr, indicating the antiphon was likely composed in the 1540s or earlier. Its original Latin text references the "Gaude" Window in the west transept of Canterbury Cathedral, where Tallis previously worked. After becoming a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, Tallis was commissioned to write an English version of Gaude gloriosa, titled Se Lord and behold, for use during Henry VIII’s French campaign and the capture of Boulogne in 1544.
At Canterbury Cathedral, Thomas Tallis faced a conflict between Archbishop Thomas Cranmer’s push for reform and resistance from conservative members of the cathedral’s chapter. Cranmer promoted a syllabic style of music, where each syllable is sung to one pitch, as outlined in his instructions for the 1544 English Litany. This influenced Tallis’s writing, making his style simpler. His Mass for Four Voices, though written in Latin, uses syllabic homophony, with less use of melisma.
The reformed Anglican liturgy began during the short reign of Edward VI (1547–53). Tallis started composing anthems in English and services for the Book of Common Prayer. His English setting of the Benedictus dates from this period, though it remained in use later, as William Byrd borrowed Tallis’s melody "which hath bene since the world began" for his Great Service. Tallis’s famous anthem If ye love me also dates to Edward VI’s reign, with the earliest source being the Wanley Partbook from 1549–1552.
Queen Mary I reversed some religious reforms after her accession in 1553. She restored the Sarum Rite, and the Chapel Royal’s style returned to the votive style of the early 1500s, though now influenced by continental traditions. Her marriage to Prince Philip of Spain brought new artistic exchanges between England and Spain. Philip’s chapel choir traveled to England in 1554, exposing Tallis to continental composers. This is evident in Suscipe quaeso Domine, a non-liturgical 7-voice motet celebrating the end of the English schism. It uses a low-pitched Flemish style suited to Philip’s choir. Loquebantur variis linguis and Miserere nostri also use 7-voice scoring, suggesting they were composed for Philip’s singers. Miserere nostri employs complex canonical techniques from the continent, including multiple augmentative prolations.
Missa Puer natus est nobis, likely composed in December 1554 for both chapel choirs, is more conservative, using a festive cantus firmus "Puer natus est nobis" referencing the birth of a boy for England. Queen Mary believed she was pregnant from 1554–1555, aiming to secure Catholic succession, which explains the celebratory scale of the mass. It combines elements of the English votive style, such as cross-relations, with features of the Flemish tradition. The tenor part includes cryptic, puzzle-like patterns based on varying note lengths used to modify the cantus firmus. Scholars have noted these patterns as resembling mathematical "games" with cantus firmi, as seen in the works of Ockeghem.
Some of Tallis’s keyboard works were compiled by Thomas Mulliner in a manuscript called The Mulliner Book before Queen Elizabeth’s reign. These may have been used by Elizabeth herself when she was younger. After Elizabeth’s accession, the Act of Uniformity abolished the Roman Liturgy, establishing the Book of Common Prayer as the official liturgy. Composers resumed writing English anthems, though some continued using Latin texts for the Chapel Royal.
At the start of Elizabeth’s reign, Protestant religious authorities discouraged polyphony in church unless the words were clearly audible, as stated in the 1559 Injunctions: "playnelye understanded, as if it were read without singing." Tallis composed nine psalm chant tunes for four voices for Archbishop Matthew Parker’s Psalter published in 1567. One of these, the "Third Mode Melody," inspired Ralph Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis in 1910. Another, a setting of Psalm 67, became known as "Tallis’s Canon." A version published by Thomas Ravenscroft was used for Thomas Ken’s hymn "All praise to thee, my God, this night."
The Injunctions allowed more elaborate music to be sung in church at certain times. Tallis
Legacy
Thomas Tallis is best known for writing sacred vocal music. Few instrumental or secular pieces can be confidently linked to him, and records of his earlier works are incomplete. Eleven of his eighteen Latin pieces from Queen Elizabeth's reign were published, which helped preserve them, unlike earlier works. Tallis was never called "father of English Church music" during his lifetime, unlike William Byrd, who was given such a title in the 17th century. The term "father of English Church music" for Tallis came later, during the Victorian era. Despite this, Tallis was highly respected. John Baldwin, who compiled the Baldwin Partbooks, considered him one of the greatest composers of his time, though he gave more praise to Thomas Mundy as one of the "Queen's Pallis." Some of Tallis' music was copied by Edward Paston's scribe, who later gave copies to Sir John Petre, a musician and recusant. William Byrd based his compositions, such as the Great Service and Laudate pueri, on Tallis' earlier works. While Tallis adapted to changes in English music, his surviving works became outdated by the time of the English Madrigal period, and his influence declined. In 1597, Thomas Morley listed composers like Fairfax, Taverner, Sheppard, Mundy, White, Parsons, and Byrde as equals to Lassus, but Tallis was not included.
Modern scholars believe Tallis was a standout composer of his time, alongside Christopher Tye and Robert White. Ernest Walker noted that Tallis had greater stylistic versatility than Tye and White, and his compositions were more consistently well-crafted. John Milsom, a musicologist, wrote that Tallis revised his works more than John Sheppard and White, aligning them with newer European techniques of imitative counterpoint. David Allinson, a musicologist, stated in 2005 that Tallis' "Spem in alium" was far superior to Striggio's 40-part motet, as Tallis' piece was a more intricately woven polyphonic composition. Tess Knighton, a music historian, described Tallis as "undoubtedly a genius."
In 1971, the Thomas Tallis School in Kidbrooke opened, named after the composer. After his death, much of Tallis' music that remained in use was in English, including his Dorian Service, individual movements like the Benedictus and Te Deum, two sets of responses, two double-chants, and hymns, psalms, and anthems from the Book of Common Prayer. It was during the Victorian era that interest in early music grew, leading to the rediscovery of "Spem in alium." 20th-century composers like Ralph Vaughan Williams and Herbert Howells used Tallis' themes in their works. In the 1920s, the Carnegie Trust supported the publication of "Tudor Church Music," reviving Tallis' Latin compositions. R. R. Terry, then chairman of the Carnegie Trust, promoted this revival to expand the choral repertoire for use at Westminster Cathedral.
Early music groups, such as the Clerkes of Oxenford and The Tallis Scholars, helped increase interest in Tallis' Latin works. In 2005, Chapelle du Roi recorded all of Tallis' works to celebrate 500 years since his estimated birth. Alamire included "Se Lord and behold" in their 2017 album Queen Katherine Parr and Songs of Reformation.
No portrait of Tallis from his lifetime survives. A portrait painted by Gerard Vandergucht was made 150 years after his death, and there is no evidence it resembles him accurately. A rare copy of his blackletter signature shows he spelled his name "Tallys."
A fictional version of Tallis appeared in the 2007 TV series The Tudors, portrayed by Joe Van Moyland. In 2018, "If ye love me" was performed at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex.
The Gloria from Tallis' Missa Puer natus est nobis was used in the soundtrack of The Keep by Tangerine Dream. "Spem in alium" appears in films like Touching the Void (2003) and Boychoir (2014), as well as TV shows like Endeavour (2019) and Mystery Road (2020). It reached No. 1 on the Classical Singles Chart in 2012 after being featured in the Fifty Shades of Grey soundtrack. "Audivi vocem" is in Inspector Gadget (1999) and The Perfect Game (2009). "If ye love me" appears in Wreckers (2011) and Vox Lux (2018). Tallis' Te Deum for means was heard during Queen Elizabeth's coronation in the film Elizabeth (1998).