Track Listing

1. Lamentations (of Jeremiah), 2nd lesson for 5 voices, P. 110: Incipit Lamentatio
2. Lamentations (of Jeremiah), 2nd lesson for 5 voices, P. 110: De Lamentatione
3. Salvator mundi (I) (also set as 'Arise O Lord' and 'With all our hearts'), motet for 5 voices, P. 216
4. O sacrum convivium (also set as 'I call and cry to thee' and 'O sacred and holy banquet'), motet for 5 voices, P. 210
5. Mass, for 4 voices, P. 31: Gloria
6. Mass, for 4 voices, P. 31: Credo
7. Mass, for 4 voices, P. 31: Sanctus
8. Mass, for 4 voices, P. 31: Benedictus
9. Mass, for 4 voices, P. 31: Agnus Dei
10. Absterge Domine, motet for 5 voices, P. 180

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #164171 in Music
• Released on: 2000-04-18
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: Original recording reissued

Amazon.com
If you were to go to the other side of the universe from where barbershop music and doo-wop reside, you'd discover the five-voice Hilliard Ensemble singing Tallis. And if you happened to love this sort of music, you'd think this must be heaven. On the other hand, if you're not sure you'd like the Hilliards or Tallis, here's the perfect place to find out. The two sets of Lamentations are supreme among Tallis's longer works, exhibiting full mastery of choral part-writing and effective use of harmonic and textural contrast. The outward solemnity of these works is sustained by the music's underlying impassioned, penitential mood--which finds ideal expression in the otherworldly beauty of these perfectly matched men's voices, which bring phenomenal interpretive and technical skill to each line and closing cadence. --David Vernier

Customer Reviews

Superb-- and unique
It must have been almost twenty years ago that I heard the Hilliard Ensemble stand up and sing this formidable Renaissance work. It was the most accomplished and flawless a capella performance I had heard in my life, and certainly an astonishing tour de force of tuning from beginning to end. But the Hilliard at their best-- as here-- combine stong character and urgent immediacy with this flawlessness. James's and Potter's singing has an almost rock 'n roll intensity, and that tension with Hillier's and Covey-Crump's warm lyricism, was perfect for the tensions in Tallis's music-- the lush unrolling of polyphonic lines, marked by crunching dissonances (if you're a Hilliard or a Tallis fan, you'll find yourself saying "Oh yes!" at the first false relation in the word "Jeremiae"). It also made the Hilliard much more than smooth perfectionists-- they were the most exciting early music ensemble of their time. This recording captures this moment in all its glory.

Beauty on a Heavenly Scale
Never before have I encountered such glorious mastery, devotion, terror, agony, joy, fulfillment and beauty as I have in Tallis (with the exception of Bach's Mass in B Minor). You will be taken to the depths of woe all the way to the heights of ecstasy all at the same time. Wave after wave of perfection and beauty will pulse into your soul mercilessly as you are ravished by the passion of the text, the tradition, and the sacred worship.

Ierusalem! Ierusalem!
Convertere ad Dominum tuum.

Tallis was the height of the Renaissance
wonderful music from one of the greatest composers of the 16th century brilliantly performed. This thick heavenly music feels so good to listen to. Spiritual, & anyway Mozart doesn't make you smart; Thomas Tallis does.