Henry VIII's Chapel Royal

Donald MacLeod explores Tallis’s time in Henry VIII’s Chapel Royal, during a period of further change in church practice and liturgy in England.

“So great a musician are you.....that if the Fates carried you off.....music would be mute.” So wrote a contemporary of Thomas Tallis, showing us just how highly this composer was regarded in his own time. Over the course of this week, Donald Macleod traces the career of Tallis, unquestionably one of England's greatest ever composers. We follow him from the early faint mentions of the composer in Dover Priory, to his 40-plus years serving four successive monarchs as part of the Chapel Royal, and through the upheaval of one of the most tumultuous periods in all of English history.

In Wednesday’s episode, Donald explores Tallis’s time in Henry VIII’s Chapel Royal, during a period of further change for church practise and liturgy in England. Tallis also saw the plague come to London during this time, and accompanied Henry to his palaces up and down river to help provide music for the King.

Magnificat for 5 voices
Choir of York Minster
Robert Sharpe, director

5 part Litany
Alamire
David Skinner, director

Sancte Deus
Tenebrae
Nigel Short, director

Hodie nobis caelorum
Taverner Choir
Andrew Parrott, director

Videte Miraculum for Vespers on Purification of Virgin Mary
Gabrieli
Paul McCreesh, director

Remember not, O Lord God
Chapelle du Roi
Alistair Dixon, director