FIG. 16-5 Title page of Cantiones, published by Thomas Tallis and William Byrd in 1575.
Not that a style founded on “plain and distinct note, for every syllable one” necessarily precluded
good music, or even masterworks. Consider the hymn O nata lux de lumine as set by Thomas Tallis
(1505–85), the greatest composer in England after the death of Taverner, who was organist at the chapel
royal all through the period of reform (Ex. 16-15). Though fantastically adept at the most grandiose and
intricate polyphonic designs—he celebrated the fortieth birthday of Queen Elizabeth I with a truly
elephantine motet, Spem in alium, for forty independent voice parts deployed in eight five-part choirs!—
Tallis also developed a sideline in Reformation austerity that he continued to cultivate even after the
height of stringency had passed.
O nata lux, published in 1575 but (to judge by its archaic original notation) composed a good deal
earlier, fulfills every condition set forth in the Edwardian statute of 1548 save that of language (no longer
insisted upon by the 1570s). Yet it remains one of Tallis’s most impressive works for the subtlety of
rhythm and (particularly) harmony with which he was able to compensate the absence of contrapuntal
interest. Let this hymn, rather than one by Merbecke or another equally gifted, represent the officially
approved music of the Anglican reformation. It shows as clearly as the Missa Papae Marcelli that
coercion can be met with creative imaginativeness, and that artists can find opportunity in constraint.
EX. 16-15 Thomas Tallis, O nata lux de lumine, mm. 1–9