Thomas Tallis (~1505-1585): Veni redemptor gentium (Krewerd)

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• published: 12 Jul 2015
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This is one of two settings of the Veni redemptor by Tallis found in the 16th-century Mulliner Book. More information about both Thomas Tallis and the 1531 Krewerd organ may be found in the description of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwzz7sYtDa0 There is a companion video to this one with Tallis's setting of Iam lucis orto sidere: http://youtu.be/yw_QtXGGrVA Veni redemptor gentium is an Ambrosian hymn assigned to services in the week before Christmas. The cantus firmus used by Tallis is presumably that given in the Sarum Service Books (which is different from the one commonly used in the catholic church today). But this is a very ornate tune that I find difficult to read (I could only find it in Gregorian notation, of which I have only a superficial knowledge), and moreover I have to admit that in Tallis's score I am not always sure which notes actually belong to the c.f.! (Theoretically it is a four-part setting, but if a part pauses the score does not always show clearly which one it is.) In any case I doubt whether anyone could hear the c.f. in a setting like this, let alone identify it. Before you contradict, you may want to watch my recording of an In nomine by Richard Alwood, also on the Krewerd organ, where the score is provided along with the recording and the issue is discussed in the video description: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tItQMzbliw Doubt clearly remains what function, if any, keyboard hymn settings like this fulfilled. It is often assumed that they served a liturgical purpose in alternatim renderings of the eponymous hymns -- that is to say, stanzas of the hymn sung by the choir would alternate with settings of the hymn tune played on the organ alone. There seems to be no actual evidence for this, which admittedly may not mean much. But it may well be that many (though of course not necessarily all) Tudor keyboard settings of plainsong tunes were intellectual rather than liturgical exercises. The Krewerd organ has a so-called short octave at the bottom end of the compass. This means that c sharp, d sharp, f sharp and g sharp are missing; the keys that would normally play f sharp and g sharp actually play d and e and the keys for e and f play c and d. You can see and hear this in the video. (The idea behind this practice, very common in pre-1800 European organ building, was to save metal on little used pipes that at this point of the organ's compass would have to be quite long and thus expensive.) a_osiander(at)gmx.net / www.andreas-osiander.net