Revisiting Byrd and Tallis

Abstract

The contents of Thomas Tallis and William Byrd’s Cantiones sacrae (1575) have been recorded and edited numerous times (including in the Byrd Edition and Tudor Church Music series). The story of its 34 motets in celebration of the 17th year of Queen Elizabeth’s accession (on 17 November) and in gratitude for her granting the two composers a monopoly on printed music and ruled music paper is a familiar one. John Milsom’s new edition for the Early English Church Music series, however, approaches the original print afresh, resulting in valuable insights and striking new perspectives on this well-known publication. The introduction itself is a substantial piece of scholarship that sets out from the start to challenge the standard accounts of the Cantiones sacrae. Firstly, addressing the notion that the collection’s 34 items (17 by each composer) were a tribute to the 17th anniversary of Elizabeth’s accession, Milsom argues that the unconvincing and strained measures used to achieve this numbering point to it being a last-minute imposition rather than an integral part of its conception. This is especially convincing given the lack of any references to the queen’s Accession Day either in the motets or the prefatory material. Instead he characterizes the publication as one ‘meant for export’, which aimed to impress through a breadth of style that celebrated the distinguished history of Tudor music-making by combining a historical retrospective of earlier forms with works representative of the latest European trends.