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Tallis - Lamentations & other sacred music

£13.60

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Label: Hyperion

Cat No: CDA68121

Barcode: 0034571281216

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 1

Genre: Vocal/Choral

Release Date: 29th April 2016

Works

Tallis, Thomas

Come Holy Ghost
Dum transisset sabbatum
In pace in idipsum
Lamentations of Jeremiah II
Lamentations of Jeremiah I
Not every one that saith unto me
Salvator mundi I
Sancte Deus
Short Service (Dorian) for 4 voices
Solemnis urgebat dies (Iam Christus astra ascenderat)
Te Deum 'for meanes'
Why brag'st in malice

Artists

The Cardinall’s Musick

Conductor

Andrew Carwood

Works

Tallis, Thomas

Artists

The Cardinall’s Musick

Conductor

Andrew Carwood

About

Superlative performances of the Tallis Lamentations make this penultimate volume in The Cardinall’s Musick cycle something rather special. Andrew Carwood’s typically inspiring commentaries further enhance an album to savour.

Sound/Video

Paused

1

Tallis: Lamentations Of Jeremiah I
2

Tallis: Lamentations Of Jeremiah II
3

Tallis: In Pace, In Idipsum
4

Tallis: Short Service, 'Dorian' - Communion Setting 1. Commandments
5

Tallis: Short Service, 'Dorian' - Communion Setting 2. Credo
6

Tallis: Not Every One That Saith Unto Me
7

Tallis: Short Service, 'Dorian' - Communion Setting 3. Sanctus
8

Tallis: Short Service, 'Dorian' - Communion Setting 4. Gloria
9

Tallis: Solemnis Urgebat Dies, 'Iam Christus Astra Ascenderat'
10

Tallis: Sancte Deus
11

Tallis: Dum Transisset Sabbatum
12

Tallis: 9 Psalm Tunes - #7 Why Brag'st In Malice High
13

Tallis: Salvator Mundi I
14

Tallis: Te Deum, 'For Meanes'
15

Tallis: 9 Psalm Tunes - #9 Come, Holy Ghost, 'Ordinal'

Europadisc Review

Biographical details about Thomas Tallis may be scarce, but we know that he served with distinction in the Chapel Royal of four Tudor monarchs: Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary and Elizabeth I. During times of tremendous religious and social turbulence, an innate humility and sense of duty appear to have shielded Tallis - a lifelong Roman Catholic - from the worst consequences of such changes, and the result is that we have music which spans the reigns of all four sovereigns. This beautiful new disc from the Cardinall’s Musick contains works from across the period, and it makes for absorbing and compelling listening, with the best of it vividly illustrating the pre-eminence Tallis enjoyed among his contemporaries.

The standout items are the two Lamentations Tallis composed in the 1560s for use on Maundy Thursday. These are rightly considered his masterpieces, with an intimate expressiveness more usually associated with chamber music, but they were not necessarily written for secret performance by recusants. While some performances opt for solo voices on each line, and others go for a more choral approach, director Andrew Carwood and his singers chart a mid-course, with two singers per part. Far from hedging their bets, this gives us the best of both worlds, allowing a measured pace and a blossoming of sound on the chromatic, melismatic Hebrew letters that head each section, while retaining a feeling of intimacy. The latter is underscored by the recording acoustic: the Fitzalan Chapel of Arundel castle, an appropriate choice even if far away (by sixteenth-century standards) from Canterbury and London where Tallis spent most of his professional life. What strikes the listener most, apart from the sheer beauty of the singing, is the range of expression Tallis conjures up in these essentially low-voice settings: here are performances in which every note is savoured without a hint of self-regard, and they can take their place at the head of an extremely competitive field.

The rest of the programme is a mixture of Latin- and English-texted music that demonstrates the sheer scope of Tallis’s genius. The Short ‘Dorian’ Service written for the vernacular Communion rite under Edward VI is startling in its brevity and emotional directness. At the other end of the scale, the effect of the bright high-treble sound in the late-night Compline respond In pace, in idipsum makes even more of an impact when placed immediately after the darkness of the Lamentations. Just as affecting is the late setting of the antiphon Salvator mundi, the opening work in the 1575 Cantiones sacrae, a landmark publication from Tallis and William Byrd; its mixture of imitative polyphony and freer setting is a winning one, and one of the highlights here.

Yet the English-texted music is in many ways just as powerful, not least the two metrical Psalm settings of texts from Archbishop Parker’s psalter, Why brag’st in malice high and Come, Holy Ghost. The latter is still widely familiar as a hymn tune, and it makes a wonderfully unassuming close to a very special collection. Andrew Carwood’s own intelligent and informative notes set the seal on another treasurable and immaculately presented disc from the Cardinall’s Musick.

Reviews

… there seems little doubt that Tallis, though a Catholic, wrote his masterpiece for Elizabeth. The repeated final lines, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, turn to the Lord your God”, unforgettable once heard, have a dark resonance here, thanks to the sonorous basses of the Cardinall’s Musick (Robert Macdonald, Simon Whiteley). The rest of this fine recording draws on music from across Tallis’s career, with English and Latin settings (Sancte Deus, Te Deum, Come, Holy Ghost and more). The singers reach the highest standards. Fiona Maddocks

The Observer 17 April 2016