Album Description

16th century England was a place of much religious change. It was a dangerous and confusing time and it is testament to their incredible skill and musical mastery that composers like Tallis and Byrd were able to produce such magnificent works in such troubled times. Their music left a lasting legacy, influencing some of our most celebrated 20th- and 21st-century composers and surviving over half a millennium to be performed as widely today as they have ever been.

This disc features some of the best-loved classics of Tudor and Jacobean church music together with madrigals by Tallis, Byrd and Gibbons. They are performed alongside pieces by Britten, Tippett and MacMillan including the Five Spirituals from A Child of Our Time and the 'Choral Dances' from Gloriana. The Sixteen has performed this repertoire around the world over the last six years and is one of the ensemble’s most popular concert programmes.

Artists

The Sixteen
Harry Christophers 

Track Listing:

Thomas Tallis (c.1505-1585)
Tunes for Archbishiop Parker's 
1. Man blest no doubt (The first is meek: devout to 
2. Let God arise in majesty (The second is sad: in 
3. Why fum'th in fight (The third doth rage: and roughly brayeth)
4. Come in one to praise the Lord (The forth doth fawn: and flattery playeth)

5. Salvator mundi

Thomas Morley (1557/58-1602)
6. April is in my mistress' face

Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625)
7. The Silver Swan 

William Byrd (1539/40-1623)
8. This sweet and merry month of May

James MacMillan (1959-)
9. Sedebit Dominus Rex (from The Strathclyde Motets)

Sir Michael Tippett (1905-1998)
10. Steal away
11. Nobody knows
12. Go down, Moses
13. By and by
14. Deep River 

Tallis
15. O nata lux
16. O sacrum convivium
17. Loquebantur variis longuis

MacMillan
18. Mitte manum tuam (from The Strathclyde Motets)

Byrd
19. Laudibus in sanctis

Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)
Choral Dances from Gloriana
20. The Masque begins
21. First Dance: Time
22. Second Dance: Concord
23. Third Dance: Time and Concord
24. Fourth Dance: Country Girls
25. Fifth Dance: Rustics and Fisherman
26. Sixth Dance: Final Dance of Homage

Tallis
Tunes for Archbishop Parker's Psalter
27. E'en like the hunted hind (The fifth delighteth: and laugheth the more)
28. Expend, O Lord, my plaint of word (The Sixth bewaileth: it weepeth full score)
29. Why brag'st in malice high (The seventh treadeth stout: in forward race)
30. God grant we peace (The eighth goeth mild: in modest pace)

31. 'Tallis's Ordinal' - Come Holy Ghost

Bob Chilcott (1955-)
32. Tallis Cannon 

TOTAL PLAYING TIME 67.04