ABSTRACT
The fact is that we cannot be entirely sure what was in the books of the Chapel Royal, or most other institutions, at any period of Thomas Tallis's life. If it is true that Tallis had risen to pre-eminence with the introduction of the Protestant liturgy in King Edward VI's time, it seems to be equally true that his musical imagination was stirred by new demands when Queen Mary came to the throne. It is not a complication which would have been welcome to Henrician reformers, but it supports the idea that Tallis's choral responds were, mostly at least, written in Mary I's reign. There is an anticipation here of the tonal tours Tallis would make in some of his later Latin-texted works. A choral respond is normally begun by soloists singing the first words of the response to the plainsong melody, after which the choir follows with a polyphonic setting of the remaining words.
