It is a mark of the respect in which Thomas Tallis is held that virtually every note of his music has been recorded at least once, in some cases many times over, in strong and compelling performances. Is there any other composer of his age, Byrd, Palestrina, Victoria, Lassus and Marenzio included, about whom one could say the same? Perhaps it is the variety as well as the character of Tallis's music that has appealed to performers and record companies alike. No anthology of his motets threatens repetition, let alone dullness, and that remains true even of a two-record compilation such as this latest offering from the Taverner Consort and Choir, directed by Andrew Parrott.
For breadth of coverage and consistency of performance, these two records should be reckoned a first choice. Listeners seeking a convenient and wide-ranging package will find much that is thrilling or exquisite and little if anything that disappoints. That said, some Tudor music enthusiasts may join me in concluding that not every piece performed here is unrivalled in the current catalogue, and that to have the very best of Tallis on record, the Taverners' two discs will not in themselves quite suffice.
Of the two discs it is the one devoted to the complete responsories and the 40-part motet Spem in alium that must be judged the more indispensible. Two of the responds, the obsessively garrulous Homo quidam fecit cenam magnam and the small Christmasti de Hodie nob is celorum Rex, here make their first appearance on record. Others, such as Videte miraculum and Dum transisset receive performances that are more carefully considered and more beautifully sung than any others at present available. Spem in alium too is spectacular, although here I have misgivings both incidental (slight mismatching among the eight sopranos; a sense of effort in several of the individual voices) and longer-lived (the generally loud dynamic level; the superfluous use of instruments supporting the bass-line not as far as can be judged part of Tallis's original conception). Had The Tallis Scholars' performance of Spem in alium on Gimell not been so sleek and spirited—marginally faster, a mite higher in pitch, better blended spaciously and slightly distantly recorded, more richly varied, fiery at times, and giving out a special sense of occasion—the Taverner Choir would have faced no real competition. As it is, The Tallis Scholars have the edge.
Much the same can be said of Gaude gloriosa the huge votive antiphon that heads the Taverner Choir's second record and which accompanies Spem in alium on The Tallis Scholars' single disc. At more than 15 minutes of unbroken music, this is one of the grandest and most audacious single-span movements attempted by any composer before the nineteenth century, and in every sense it is a demanding piece. Andrew Parrott performs it with an unusually large choir (though reducing to solo voices for the many verse sections) to produce a reading that is rich, mellow and extremely accomplished. But again, the lean, eager sound of The Tallis Scholars is even more enticing, and ahead even of them I should place the choir of New College, Oxford, under Edward Higginbottom on CRD, in whose hands Gaude gloriosa transcends the secular world of the concert hall and, replete with soaring boys' voices, is transported back into the world of ritual and liturgy to which it properly belongs.
What makes the Taverners' second record special, however, is a selection of Tallis's Elizabethan motets sung by a solo ensemble. Shunning as ever the male falsetto voice and preferring a low pitch close to Tallis's original notation, Parrott nevertheless delivers poised, expressive and thoroughly musical performances that show no sign of strain, even with the top line of the first Lamentation sung by a single high tenor. In fact, so successful are these cameo-like one-to-a-part interpretations that the surrounding motets sung by a full choir seem overblown. The choice of such different performing resources solo and choral for pieces of a broadly similar nature seems arbitrary.
One brief final point. The portrait of Tallis that stares out from the covers of these two records may or may not be an authentic likeness of the composer, but it is emphatically not taken from the book of motets published by Tallis and Byrd in 1575, as claimed by the insert notes. Shun the eyes of this putative Tallis, and turn instead to the music itself. If the performances by the Taverner Choir and Consort do not always penetrate to the very heart of the matter, rarely do they mislead and often they are full of truth.'