Choral timeline

Tallis, one of England's leading composers of sacred music in the 16th century, was also one of the earliest English composers to set music to English texts. He composed only a few instrumental works, exclusively for keyboards, most of them for use in sacred service.

In the 1540s, Henry VIII's break with Rome and the gradual emergence of the Church of England had radical implications for church composers. The ancient Latin liturgies were progressively discontinued, and with them went the old styles of elaborate Latin sacred music.

The reformers' zealotry meant that church music moved towards a more compact style, setting words in English - which Archbishop Cranmer summarised, in a letter to the King, as "not full of notes, but, as nearly as may be, for every syllable a [single] note, so that it may be sung distinctly and devoutly". The response of composers like Tallis can be hears in works such as the anthem recorded here (setting words taken from the New Testament book of John which describe Christ's promise to his disciples to send down the Holy Spirit) - a piece almost hymn-like in its simplicity.

But times and monarchs change: through his long life, Tallis lived through the ultra-protestant reign of Edward VI, the Roman Catholic revival of Mary Tudor (during which the old elaborate Latin rites and musical styles were reinstated) and - eventually - the "middle way" of Elizabeth I where works in Latin and English where once again permitted. He himself remained Catholic.