“I am troubled on ev’ry side!” Music by Tallis and his contemporaries
Tutor: Lisa Colton
Liverpool Parish Church
VOICES & INSTRUMENTS
This workshop presents music circulating in early sixteenth-century England and uses the music of Thomas Tallis (d. 1585) as a focus. We will perform a range of pieces that reflect the religious and political turmoil of that time, from the (justifiable) paranoia of Queen Katherine Parr against her enemies “which make rebellion against me” in her lyrics See Lord and Behold to the 1544 litany that pleads for deliverance from the “tyranny of the bishop of Rome”. Prepare for some religious and political fervour!
Voices and instruments are all welcome, and instrumentalists will be encouraged to sing in some items, encouraged by the mention of cornetts, fifes, and sackbuts in some mid-sixteenth-century English records. Music will be provided in C and will include:
- Anon, Four-part Kyrie from The York Masses (c.1500)
- Tallis, See Lord and Behold (text by Queen Katherine Parr, a contrafact to Gaude gloriosa dei mater, 1544) (ed. David Skinner)
- Tallis, Five-Part Litany, combining an English text (1544) with music attributed to Tallis (ed. Andrew Johnstone) and (Tallis?) Anonymous, Five-Part Latin Litany (ed. Jason Smart)
- Tallis, Five-part antiphon O sacrum convivium, which may have begun as an instrumental piece
The workshop is for singers in all vocal ranges and players of viols, cornetts, sackbuts, recorders, and other similar instruments, playing pitch at A=440.
Lisa Colton is Head of Department at the University of Liverpool, having moved there in 2022 from the University of Huddersfield. Her research interests as a musicologist focus on medieval and renaissance music, especially from England. Lisa is a member of the Early English Church Music series committee, for whom she has a role in promoting the use of the series editions by performers. Lisa is a singer, plays viols and wind instruments, and has experience in directing choirs in university settings; she has run workshops and given talks previously for the North East Early Music Forum.
