Tallis Scholars (Conducted by Peter Phillips) - (Great Britain)

SPLENDOURS OF THE TUDOR ROYAL CHAPEL

Tallis Scholars

Sacred songs of the Renaissance

Peter Phillips founded the Tallis Scholars in 1973, a vocal ensemble of ten singers, named in honour to Thomas Tallis, the great English composer of the Renaissance.

During the 15th and 16th centuries in Europe, along side other artistic developments, a pleiad of talented composers flourished.

This relatively brief period saw the flowering in Italy and in France, and also of England, of such illustrious names such as Palestrina, Mnteverdi, Josquin des Près, Williams Byrd and the above mentioned Thomas Tallis.

It was during the Renaissance that music became more widespread when sovereigns, who previously had little interest in music, created the first capella (chapel) including a few musicians and many singers and instrumentalists.

The expression "royal chapel" designated the personnel who were maintained by the various English sovereigns as members of the royal household, whose work it was to organise and celebrate the divine service of the royal family.

The celebration of the services of the Latin liturgy called for choirs of priests, clerics and children. From modest beginnings successive sovereigns developed the royal chapel until it figured at the top of secular liturgical choirs in Europe, from the 15th to the 17th century, with composers assigned to its service.

Certain members of the royal family and certain monarchs such as Henry VIII, Elizabeth I of England and Guglielmo Gonzaga, Prince of Venosa, were even able to play an instrument themselves.

Religious music was not left behind in this general burst of life. In Rome, the "capella papale" included 20 singers, and it was for their performances that Pope Sixte IV had the Sistine Chapel built. In St. Peter's, the practice of music evolved during the course of the Papal rule of Jules II through the establishment of a chapel-school.

In fact, although the Renaissance was the era of a great philosophical, cultural and artistic development marked by a seal of humanism that began to separate itself from the religious sphere, it was also a great period of faith and of spirituality, of which music is an obvious trace.

In England, Thomas Tallis, born in 1585 became songster of the Canterbury Cathedral and worked as a composer and "Gentleman" to the royal chapel, for Queen Mary, then for Queen Elizabeth. Brought up in the Catholic tradition, his first works include Latin liturgical compositions, meant for great religious festivals.

After Henry VIII's break with Rome, Tallis also composed superb anthems for the Anglican church, the anthem (a form similar to the motet of the Latin church) being one of the rare concessions made for music in the religious service. by the authors of the Book of Common Prayer.

With the reign of Elizabeth and her greater tolerance, music became tangibly more sophisticated and composers began to write great polyphonic anthems.

William Byrd, a composer, was a contemporary of T. Tallis, and his student. He is the author of an immense collection of masses, motets, polyphonic songs as well as chamber music. Byrd shared the responsibility of organist in the Royal Chapel in 1570 under the reign of Elizabeth I. Trained like Tallis in the Catholic tradition, and on the fringes of the predominating Anglicanism, he escaped persecution because of his reputation as a composer in favour with the court. Towards the end of his life he dedicated himself more and more to Latin religious music for the Catholic church.

A good part of the repertoire of the Tallis Scholars is taken from the works of these two composers and it is to them that this concert in Fes is dedicated.

Since their founding, the Tallis Scholars have performed in the most prestigious festivals and concert halls. Amongst the most remarkable moments of the long career of the Tallis Scholars, it is worth mentioning the concert given in the Sistine Chapel in 1994 to celebrate the restoration of its ceiling and Michaelangelo's fresco, a concert with Sir Paul McCartney in New York, remarkable appearances in the Salzburg Festival, the concert given in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome for the 400th anniversary of the death of Palestrina.

In 1998 in New York, the group gave its 1000th concert.

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