Review: Hope & Glory

Author(s): Peter Phillips

Review by: Peter Phillips
Source: The Musical Times, Vol. 149, No. 1905 (Winter, 2008), pp. 107, 109-111
Published by: Musical Times Publications Ltd.
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reviews

Book
PETER PHILLIPS

Hope & glory

Thomas Tallis and hismusic inVictorian England
Suzanne Cole

The

Press

Boydell

2008); xxvi, 232PP; ?50, $95.

(Woodbridge,

excellent
book has dealt me two firsts,
which are not connected: it is the first time a

This

book of any kind has started and ended with

isbn 978 1 84383 380 2.

ject, to "strip itof its local, historical, and worldly

so that "only itsaesthetic properties would
origins"
remain".'

metaphorically

Itwas during the 19th century that the establish

and, unique
experience
quotation
of academic studies, I couldn't put itdown.
ing of themusical 'museum' and filling itwith 'art
in
works'
is
short
Serious writing about Tallis
very
really got going. Cole chooses theVictorian
account is still period for that reason, and chooses Tallis because
supply. The only proper all-round
a

in my

from me;

the deliberately thin 1968 Tallis by Paul Doe in the

Oxford Studies of Composers series. There have
been many articles, by such writers as JohnMil
som and others, but no full-length biography, not

even

for

the 2005

anniversary.

and Taverner

Byrd

have faredmuch better. This really does seem un

balanced, since as every year goes by it becomes
clearer

that Tallis
than

composer

at least,

was,

and

Byrd,

a more

adventurous

one.

arguably

greater

It

is also time the fundamental question of whether he

was really the Catholic we all take him forwas ad

dressed.
Cole's

the answer

is not

book

it is far more

sis, but
wanted

references

to

as

are.

fascinating

they

than
source
She

to the
general

concentrates

and

many
on

a small

topic,which almost inevitably seems to lead to un

expected corners and discoveries. Behind much of

it is thehistory of how European artmusic became

established in the public mind as a series of 'works'
worthy of taking out of theiroriginal contexts and
putting inwhat Lydia Goehr has called the 'imagi

nary museum'

of

the concert

hall. We

hear

repeat

edly about this 'museum', and fromboth Goehr and

Michael Talbot, who stand behind much of what
Cole writes: 'The role of the imaginarymuseum
two-fold:
a work

it acts
of fine

as a marker
art",

and

of an
serves

object's
to "frame"

status

is
"as

the ob

linewas the 40-part motet Spem in alium, which was

known about, inspected, waltzed round and prod

ded with very mixed feelings, as something which

would not go away but represented something inef
fable from thepast; and on the otherwere thePreces

and responses,which were not just loved but put on

a
so high that the story about St Gregory
pedestal
and the dove could scarcely rival the statuswhich

they achieved while representing exactly what was

wanted from the past. It helps Cole's thesis that
the Victorians

of much

repository
material,

cri

he represents a kind of fault line,where Byrd and

Gibbons would not do so well. On one side of the

scarcely

knew

another

piece

by Tal

lis, and that neither Byrd nor Gibbons could offer

such an extreme divide between the complexity of

40-part polyphony (whose lustre in the last year or

so has taken a further
polishing now that another,

inferior 40-part colossus by Striggio has been un

earthed) and a few boring chords (which can only
very vaguely be attributed toTallis). By comparing
the reception of such diverse compositions, Cole

has

been

able

to

capture

moments

several

at once:

the gradual move from utility piece to museum

'work'; the very slow birth of interest inwhat Tal

lismight actually have written (though no apparent

interest inwhat he might have heard); the progress
of Tallis's reputation from a quasi-divine Anglican
(according

to one

commentator

THE Musical

he had

times

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been

'raised

Winter 20o8

107

up' by God to perfect the service of the English

Church) to flesh and blood Catholic; and the influ
ence

of who

the Britons

are -

really

nation

myths

18th century that Spem was not to be performed

a silent monument

as

to act

but

to Tallis's

genius.

Nonetheless, copies of copies continued to be made

at
on
intervals
from the mid-18th
inherited from thepast ? which Tallis and his Preces
century
regular
a
to
in
in
of
write
mixed
because
much-favoured
which
enabled
Charles
got
up
Burney
theory wards,
one
recte
retro
et
and
in
'a
about how the Celts used to sing in
laboured
1771:
way and
Fugue,
long

theNorthern peoples of Britain in another,with the

two traditionsmeeting in these chords.

The surprises are in thedetail, and what fascinat

ing details they are. The full-life representation of
Tallis on theAlbert Memorial, next to Beethoven,

was news to me and

on the front
figures grandly
cover of the book. For some years in the 1840s

Westminster Abbey used to have an annual Tallis

Day, which drew big crowds. The main attraction
was his Service inD, which was
ness,

gloomy

Later

and

grandeur,

in the century,

when

loved for its 'vast

ponderous
interest was

anthems,

If ye

love me

and Hear

at last turn

the voice

and

prayer, were sung to Latin words, possibly to dig

nify them.A whole chapter isdevoted to thehistory
of the 19th-centuryperformances of Spem, which
precisely dovetail with what most of us know about
the

20th-century

ones.

These

pass

into

living

mances of Spem in the

early 17th century, itdidn't
occur

to

re

cord, beginning with theBoris Ord version in 1936,

which I heard people still describing 20 years ago.
(Is it just coincidence that a succession of Organists
of King's College Cambridge have played such a
leading role in the establishing of Spem as a master

in the

anyone

200

intervening

that

years

itmight be as much a sonic experience as a visual

one until 1836,when the
a
Madrigal Society gave
private

reviews

The

performance.

of

this and

the

five subsequent attempts during the 19th century

make wonderful reading; and even if the perfor
mances

solemnity'.

ing to Tallis's Latin-texted music, his great Angli

can

40 parts,may be a good entertainment for theEyes

of a Critic, but can never delight theEars of a Man
of Taste.' Although there clearly had been perfor

they

were

were

not

at least

one
exactly
enjoyed,
seen as a
big occasion,

notices

that
of

worthy

comment. The performance held in Exeter Hall in

1845, f?r example, sung by 500 people to sol-fa syl
lables was described as 'too trashy for endurance'
and Tallis's

music

of a barbarous

'the mistake

age'.

Equally memorable is the Daily Telegraph's de

scription of the next attempt, 34 years later in 1879,
when

was

the music

to be

found

as

'about

interest

ing and valuable as a set of Chinese concentric balls

or a table made of a million bits of wood'. That
should have sunk it for good but, undaunted, AH
Mann

itwith

performed

400

singers

at the

Congress

of the Incorporated Society of Musicians in 1898,

to
to
from
Ord
when
TheMusical Times observed that 'it is not a
go
piece? Perhaps
performances by
Willcocks in a relatively short space of time isnot so work one yearns to hear twice, but it is a remarkable
surprising, but who knew thatAH Mann published
the firstpractical edition of themusic in 1888, some
80 years before the seminal CUMS recording? At

least here is furtherevidence of how long-lived the

influence of the choral scene at King's has been.)

At thebeginning of the 19thcentury the prevail

ing view of Spem was that itwas something more
to be marvelled at than
performed, rather in the

way thatmedieval Romans viewed the colossal but

decaying

monuments

around

them

as

the unintel

ligible and practically useless creations of gods.

Thomas Tudway, for example, claimed early in the

example of the glorification of early contrapuntal

ingenuity'. That remarkwas the first sign of inter
est in the actual musical
styleTallis had employed,

and from there the challenges inherent in staging it

began to be seen as desirable. By the time I came
to conduct it for the first time in 1973
performances

were

still rare

enough

every

five years

so -

or

to

be flagged up months in advance in the press, en

couraging enthusiasts to travel long distances to
hear them.By 2006 the ragewas such that Iwas able
to take
part
Cole

in 18

has been
the

performances
tireless

musical

in

in as many

unearthing

times

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Winter

weeks.

these

reviews

2008

109

no

Book reviews

visit our website,

.co .uk,
wwwmusicaltimes
Please

where you will find extracts

from articles, book reviews,

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reverses

the

of

meaning

ish composer Tomas

'Vittoria',

an

Italian

sentence.

the

The

useage

long

since

Span

is given as

Luis de Victoria

abandoned;

city of Hannover should be spelt

with two 'n's, George III not coming from New
the German

Hampshire;
an academic

monuments

and I would

have expected better of

than

publisher

to

print

'to act as

silent

to the "ye great skill and ability of ye

composer".' Publishers who print 'Vittoria' should

know

what

'ye'

means.

But

the greatest

mystery

was how the Rev. H. Fleetwood Sheppard's name

on p.97 as
was
Shepherd in
spelt. He first appears
in
the footnote relating to
the text, but Sheppard

Which brings me tomy own words. The book

ends with a reprise of theopening, where I am quot
ed as having said in a newspaper interview thatThe

Tallis Scholars unashamedly sing Tallis's music in

concert halls, treating it simply as very good music
and not

trying

to recreate

the

original

circumstances

of its performance (or, I would now continue, the

a
original sound, but that is different topic). Fair
enough. Cole's book ends: 'a full understanding of
the revival of thismusic can only be achieved when
the religious function is considered alongside

aesthetic

function,

and when

we

leave

aside

our

the

de

sire for themusic of Tallis and his contemporaries

to be "just very good music".' Isn't that thewrong

it.This confusion is later compounded by a refer

ence to the great Tudor composer, John Sheppard, way round? I don't desire Tallis's music to be very
who isusually spelt thus,but in a footnote on p. 8 5 is good. And if itweren't, no-one would be interested
in trying to understand the revival of it. I can't help
given as Shepherd. (The index has both spellings).
One could only wish that the footnote on p. 120 feeling that the need to find a good research topic
which refers to 'Sheppard: Tallis and his Song of has run away with Cole in thesewords. But it is a
?
to
an
true
been
have
that would
Parts' were
Forty
good topic, and I recommend her contribution
on Tallis wholeheartedly.
to cap them all.
account
the
available
literature
eye-witness

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as well as telling thehistory of how themusic itself

has been preserved. She shows how some of that
came

history

in the wrong

together

order.

The

ear

liest surviving manuscript of Spem isEgerton 3512,

copied in the firstyears of the 17th century, pre
sumably from the lost autograph. Although every

or lost
enough property for reputations to be made
on

account

of

them.

The main subplot of the book is to join the dis

cussion

about

'concretized

'

how
after

are

their music

and

composers

a word

their deaths,

which

means

'that in the perceptions of a particular collective an

individual work or theworks of a given composer

more or less depends from this,

subsequent edition
themanuscript itself disappeared between 1815 and will assume a distinct shape that can be identified
and thatwill change with time and circumstance '. In
1947,when itwas presented to the British Library
case inCole's account this
'by a lady resident in King's Lynn'. None of the Tallis's
applies primarily
a
19th-centuryeditions therefore could have referred to theVictorian period, though crucial perspec
to itdirectly,nor could theTudor Church Music edi
tive ishow we have reacted tohim since. The choice
tion of 1928, on which many performers still relied of repertoire to compare ? very big indeed and as
in the 1970s.The famous story of theDuke of Nor
small as itgets while still sustaining fame - is per

folk putting his gold chain about Tallis's neck after fect for the task, though there is a trace of whimsy
the firstperformance of Spem only came to light in about it.Why does the titleof Lydia Goehr's book
museum
of musical
works'
refer to the
1878when theRev. H. Fleetwood Sheppard wrote
'imaginary
a letter to The Musical Times (TheMusical Times when there is
nothing 'imaginary' about it?A mu

and its reports are a major source formuch of this

book) saying that 20 years earlier he had stumbled
across the information in the
Cambridge University
it.
but
with
done
Library,
nothing
Cole's

in

patience

reaches

its zenith

sponses.

If

in the

examining
chapter

this story

anything

all

on

the

the Preces

is even more

re

remark

able than the one about Spem, though themusic, to

us,

is so unremarkable

that a critic

a recent

of

re

cording of the complete Tallis could only congratu

late the singers formanaging not to sound bored. At
least

it shouldn't

be necessary

for anyone

to have

to

go over all the twists and turns of the reception of

these

pieces

again,

surviving

as

they

do

in count

less sources, edited and published by musicians of

greatly varying proficiency, the music constantly
being rewritten on a whim and little of it having
anything to do with Tallis himself. Even the basic
question of whether theywere written for four or

five

voices

gave

rise

to turf wars

between

The concert hall is not an imaginarymuseum,

a museum.

sources
and

seum is full of pictures which have been taken there

from other places; a concert hall plays host topieces
of music which were intended for somewhere else.

the ex

perts,which lasted for decades. A typical contribu

tion came from the collector Edward Rimbault, who
claimed that the old Barnard edition for five voices
must be wrong because the chant had been moved

from the tenor and, as ifby logical extension, a part

added. And so itwent on: these chords were a hot

And

the very word

'concretization'

it is
is a

shocker, the shock augmented by the fact that the

V spelling is not used consistently every time this
word appears (p. 14) and is not used at all in other
and

similar

ample).
There

words

('crystallisation'

are other minor

on

ex
p. 191 for

irritations of this kind.

Although Cole writes clearly, she lays out the dis

cussion
you

want

as

in a student
to

essay:

say, then you

say

first you

explain
sum

it, then you

what
up by

saying itagain and previewing the next stage of the

argument. This is tedious, and by the largely super
fluous Conclusion, redundant. Much as Iwould like

to think thatmusic students

habitually studyTallis's
I fear even that is
hoping for too much, let

music

alone his reception in the 19th century: this book

is for trainedminds. And the over-care which has

gone into this side of thewriting is regularly vitiated

by the proof-reading and the partial referencing of
the index. In the former category there are several
single nouns followed by plural verbs; and one case
(p. 170) of a 'not' being omitted, which of course
the musical

times

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Winter 2008

111