Thomas Tallis (1505-1585), “the father of English cathedral music,” served in the Chapel Royal under Henry VIII, Edward VI, Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth I during one of the most volatile periods in English political history, writing music for both the Roman Catholic and reformed Anglican liturgy. The tune this arrangement is based upon was the third of “Nine Psalm Tunes for Archbishop Parker’s Psalter,” written to accompany metrical settings of the psalms by the first Anglican archbishop of Canterbury, Matthew Parker.
Tallis’s Third Tune is also the the theme of Ralph Vaughan Williams’s well-known “Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis” for string orchestra (1910).
Score, parts (Bb tpt. 1, Bb tpt. 2, F horn, tbn, tuba) — $12.99