Tallis’s monumental setting of Gaude Gloriosa Mater Dei (Rejoice O glorious Mother of God) used to be thought to date from Queen Mary’s reign (1553 – 1558). Recent discoveries suggest it was probably written late in the reign of Henry VIII in the 1540s, or possibly even in the late 1530s.
I remember hearing recordings of this amazing work from the 1970s onwards by the The Clerkes Of Oxenford, the Tallis Scholars and others. The received wisdom then seemed to be that this long work in Latin dated from the reign of Queen Mary (1553-1558) who tried to take the country back to catholicism after the protestant reformation started by her father and continued by her half-brother. A long work in Latin .. it seemed to make sense. So I was interested to discover that we now know otherwise ….
Some music was found during building work at Corpus Christi College Oxford in 1978. The music is nothing but several tiny fragments, but it has been identified as the second “Contratenor” part of Gaude Gloriosa, with words in English, in place of the usual Latin. It took a while to identify the words. The author is none other than Henry VIII’s sixth wife, Queen Katherine Parr who married Henry and became Queen in 1543. In 1544 she published “Psalmes or Prayers”. The book includes fifteen “psalm-collages” in English, followed by a prayer for the king, and also a prayer ‘for men to saie entryng inte battaile’ (England was then at war with Scotland and France – the Mary Rose sank in July 1545). The text of Parr’s Ninth Psalm, Se lord and behold, exactly matches the text of the Corpus Christi fragments. Scholars believe that Tallis’s work with its warlike English text may have been performed at a pre-war religious service at (old) St Paul’s cathedral in May 1544, before Henry’s campaign of summer 1544 which led to the recapture of Boulogne and the surrounding area. It’s fascinating to think that Thomas Tallis and Queen Katherine might have collaborated to create this work, and to think that possibly some of the officers who died on the Mary Rose the following year might have heard this performance.
What does this tell us about Tallis’s original Latin work? It tells us that it was almost certainly written much earlier than we previously thought. David Skinner suggests that it might have been written during Tallis’s time in Canterbury. He was there as a singer from 1541 until 1543 or 1544 when he moved to the Chapel Royal. Skinner further speculates that Tallis might have been asked to provide music for Queen Katherine’s “war psalm”, and decided to adapt Gaude Gloriosa, because there wasn’t time to write a new piece.
We’ll be singing the piece with its original Latin text on 2 March as part of our Celestial Harmonies programme. Which part am I singing? – the second Contratenor!
The Text
Gaude Gloriosa is a setting of 9 prayers to the Virgin Mary, each beginning with the word Gaude. We don’t know who wrote the text or why. David Skinner (2022) conjectures that the piece could have been inspired by a stained glass window at Canterbury Cathedral. Near the place where Becket was murdered in 1170, there was a large ‘Gaude’ window. Richard Culmer who was a clergyman and iconoclast destroyed the window in 1643 and helpfully provided a description of the glass he was smashing up. It had ‘seven large pictures of the Virgin Marie, in seven severall glorious appearances and every picture had an inscription under it, beginning with gaude Maria’. Could Tallis’s Gaude Gloriosa have been written for a special occasion at Canterbury Cathedral such as the refoundation of the cathedral in 1541, and the text inspired by the window with its nine (not seven as in the window) ‘Gaude’ invocations?
The different prayers are set by Tallis for different voice combinations. One remarkable section in the middle of the work “Gaude virgo Maria, quam dignam laude celebrat ecclesia ..” is for two sopranos, two altos and bass. The tenors get a rest!
Concert Listing – Celestial Harmonies
Tim Ault
February 2024
Notes
Most of the information above is taken from David Skinner‘s introduction to ” Latin church music. 1. Mass Salve intemerata & Antiphons Contrafactum Se Lord and behold“, published for the British Academy by Stainer and Bell in 2022. My thanks to the Bodleian Library for making this and other materials available to me.
Read more on the website of David Skinner’s splendid group Alamire. You can also watch an interview with David Skinner on BBC Breakfast. It’s not often that Thomas Tallis gets a mention on there!
https://www.alamire.co.uk/discography/thomas-tallis-queen-katherine-parr-songs-of-reformation/
Classic FM picked up the story too :
https://www.classicfm.com/music-news/videos/katherine-parr-henry-viii-tallis/
The fragments are known as Corpus Christ College, Oxford, MS 566. They are available online here:
https://www.diamm.ac.uk/archives/45/
The fullest account is in David Skinner’s article ‘Deliuer me from my deceytful ennemies: A Tallis Contrafactum in Time of War‘, Early Music, 44 (2016), pp. 233-50.
the Oxford Pro Musica Singers performing in Exeter College Chapel in 2023