his Service in the Dorian mode, were most probably composed soon after the second Prayer Book of Edward VI. was issued in 1552. In 1560 he contributed eight tunes to Day's Psalter (one of which, a canon 2 in 1, was subsequently adapted and is still used to Ken's Evening Hymn), and four anthems to Day's Morning, Communion, and Evening Prayer. On January 21, 1575–6 he and William Byrd obtained Letters Patent giving them the exclusive right of printing music and ruled music paper for twenty-one years; the first of the kind. The first work printed under the patent was the patentees' own 'Cantiones quæ ab argumento Sacræ vocantur, quinque et sex partium,' containing 34 motets, 16 by Tallis, and 18 by Byrd, and dated 1575. In the patent the grantees are called 'Gent. of our Chappell' only, but on the title-page of the 'Cantiones' they describe themselves as 'Serenissimæ Regineæ Maiestati à priuato Sacello generosis, et Organistis.' The work is a beautiful specimen of early English musical typography. It contains not only three laudatory poems, one 'De Anglorum Musica' (unsigned), and two others by 'Richardus Mulcasterus' and 'Ferdinandus Richardsonus,' but also at the end a short poem by Tallis and Byrd themselves:—
Autores Cantionum ad Lectorem.
Has tibi primitias sic commendamus, amice
Lector, ut infantem depositura suum
Nutrici fidei vix firma puerpera credit,
Queis pro lacte tuæ gratea frontis erit
Hac etenim fretæ, magnam promittere messem
Audebunt, cassæ, falcis honore cadent.
which has been thus happily Englished:—[1]
The Framers of the Musicke to the Reader.
As one, that scarce recouer'd from her Throes
With trustie Nurse her feeble Babe bestowes;
These firstlings, Reader, in thy Hands we place,
Whose Milk must be the Fauour of thy Face;
By that sustayn'd, large Increase shal they shew,
Of that depriued, ungarner'd must they goe.
About the same time Tallys composed his markable Song of Forty parts, for 8 choirs of 5 voices each, originally set to Latin words, but adapted to English words about 1630.[2] [See vol. iii. p. 274.] Tallys, like his contemporary, the famous Vicar of Bray, conformed, outwardly at least, to the various forms of worship which successive rulers imposed, and so retained his position in the Chapel Royal uninterruptedly from his appointment in the reign of Henry VIII until his death in that of Elizabeth. From the circumstance of his having selected his Latin motets for publication so lately as 1575 it may be inferred that his own inclination was toward the older faith. He died November 23, 1585, and was buried in the chancel of the parish church at Greenwich, where in a stone before the altar rails a brass plate was inserted with an epitaph in verse engraven upon it. Upon the church being taken down for rebuilding soon after 1710 the inscription was removed, and Tallys remained without any tombstone memorial for upwards of 150 years, when a copy of the epitaph (which had been preserved by Strype in his edition of Stow's Survey of London, 1720,[3] and reprinted by Hawkins, Burney and others) was placed in the present church. The epitaph was set to music as a 4-part glee by Dr. Cooke, which was printed in Warren's collections. Tallys's Service (with the Venite as originally set as a canticle), Preces and Responses, and Litany, and 5 anthems (adapted from his Latin motets), were first printed in Barnard's Selected Church Musick, 1641. The Service, Preces, Responses and Litany, somewhat changed in form and with the substitution of a chant for Venite instead of the original setting, and the addition of a chant for the Athanasian Creed, were next printed by Dr. Boyce in his Cathedral Music. All the various versions of the Preces, Responses and Litany are included in Dr. Jebb's 'Choral Responses and Litanies.' He appears to have written another service also in the Dorian mode, but 'in 5 parts two in one,' of which, as will be seen from the following list, the bass part only is at present known. A Te Deum in F, for 5 voices, is much nearer complete preservation (see List). Hawkins included in his History scores of two of the Cantiones, and, after having stated in the body of his work that Tallys did not compose any secular music, printed in his appendix the 4-part song, 'Like as the doleful dove.' Burney in his History printed an anthem from Day's Morning, Communion, and Evening prayer, and two of the Cantiones. Several MS. compositions by Tallys are preserved at Christ Church, Oxford, in Queen Elizabeth's Virginal Book, in the British Museum, and elsewhere. (See the List.) We give his autograph from the last leaf of a MS. collection of Treatises on Music, formerly belonging to Waltham Abbey, now in the British Museum (Lansdowne MS. 763).
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A head, purporting to be his likeness, together with that of Byrd, was engraved (upon the same plate) for Nicola Haym's projected History of Music, 1726. A single impression alone is known, but copies of a photograph taken from it are extant.
The following is a first attempt to enumerate the existing works of Tallys:—
- ↑ By Mr. H. F. Wilson, of Trinity College, Cambridge, to whom the Editor's best acknowledgments are due.
- ↑ Copies are to be found iu the Madrigal Society's Library, made by John Immyns; the British Museum; the Royal College of Music; the Library of Sir F. A. G. Ouseley.
- ↑ By an odd misprint the composer's name is called 'Gallys' on Strype's copy.
