Thomas Tallis: Complete Works [Box set]

Tallis (Artist), Du Roi (Artist), Benson-Wilson (Artist), Dixon (Artist), Thomas Tallis (Composer), Alistair Dixon (Conductor) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Conductor: Alistair Dixon
• Composer: Thomas Tallis
• Audio CD (April 1, 2008)
• Number of Discs: 10
• Format: Box set
• Note on Boxed Sets: During shipping, discs in boxed sets occasionally become dislodged without damage. Please examine and play these discs. If you are not completely satisfied, we'll refund or replace your purchase.
• Label: Brilliant Classics
• ASIN: B0012OVFIE
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #64,219 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #11 in Music > Classical > Opera & Vocal > Vocal Non-Opera > Te Deum
  • #20 in Music > Classical > Opera & Vocal > Vocal Non-Opera > Chants
  • #36 in Music > Classical > Opera & Vocal > Vocal Non-Opera > Partsongs

Track Listings

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

61 of 63 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Superb Set from Brilliant Classics, May 30, 2008

By 

M. Morrison - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Thomas Tallis: Complete Works (Audio CD)

I can't praise highly enough the service to the music world that Brilliant Classics is doing by issuing the complete works of both well-known and lesser-known masters. Brilliant is perhaps best known for its complete sets of Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven, each priced at a little over $100 for close to 100 CDs in each set.

I was previously familiar with the English Thomas Tallis (1505-1585), but not with the complete spectrum of his works, which is available in this set. Most of the works are Catholic Latin choral works, highly suggestive of the sublime master of sacred polyphony, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina (1514-1594), Tallis's Italian contemporary.

Palestrina remained completely Catholic, and wrote only for the Church. Tallis, as an Englishman, was caught up in that revolutionary period, when Henry VIII and his successors began introducing modified Church services in the early part of that period known as the Protestant Reformation. CD6 contains some of the music for these services, some in Latin and some in English. (English just doesn't cut it as a liturgical language; it always comes across as trite in comparison to the Latin.)

Some of Tallis's Latin settings almost equal the great Palestrina, such as "Spem in alium" for forty individual voices, which is perhaps the most familiar of Tallis's works. CD9 and CD10 contain Tallis's instrumental music, primarily on lute and harmonium, with some vocal airs.

The engineering is clear, as with all the Brilliant Classics sets, which are not reissues of older material, but new recordings. The 10-CD set is supplemented by a CD-ROM containing all linernotes and text of the vocal music.

34 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An excellent set, May 14, 2009

By 

Sid Nuncius (London England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Thomas Tallis: Complete Works (Audio CD)

This is a truly excellent set, and at a bargain price. I have loved Tallis's music for many years and have some dearly loved recordings by The Tallis Scholars, the Hillard Ensemble and The Taverner Consort which won't be superseded by this set, but are certainly beautifully complemented by it. The approach of Alistair Dixon and Chapelle du Roi is calm and restrained, and the music glows as a result. The singers are very good, tuning is virtually faultless and the absence or restrained use of vibrato ideal. The overall sound is very warm, by and large, emphasised by resonant acoustics in all the recording venues, and this eight-year project is a very fine achievement which does real justice to one of England's greatest composers.

The music itself is magnificent. Obviously, in any Complete Works there will be some pieces of less interest to individual listeners, and while I'm not over-keen to hear lengthy organ settings of Felix namque on a regular basis, there will be those who are. There is a wealth of magnificent music - for example the motet Miserere nostri is, for me, two minutes of what Heaven sounds like and, of course, there are little-recorded gems to discover among the better-known pieces. A Complete Works also allows you to see how the changing religious politics of the Tudor period affected the way liturgical music was composed, from the overwhelmong, stunning 40-voice motet Spem in alium for Catholic worship under Mary to the spare but lovely Four Voice Mass to comply with Cranmer's new protestantism.

It's worth saying that Disc 9 - The Instrumental Music and Songs - was named by a recent reviewer on BBC Radio 3's CD Review as an Essential Tallis disc. Quite right, too, in my view - the playing by Charivari Agréable is excellent and the counter-tenor Stephen Taylor is very good, too. The disc also includes `Ye sacred muses', Byrd's stunning lament on Tallis's death, which is a real bonus.

Brilliant Classics make a pretty good job of the packaging. It's cardboard, but attractive and durable. All the original liner notes and texts are supplied on a CD-ROM as Adobe Acrobat files. It's good to have them, although you can't really sit down comfortably with the text in front of you as you could with a booklet. For so much superb music at such a price, though, this is a sacrifice well worth making.

This set is not only musically delightful, it is an outstanding bargain, and I recommend it wholeheartedly.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Heavenly music, arranging, singing, recording, August 31, 2010

By 

Bill Staley (Santa Monica, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Thomas Tallis: Complete Works (Audio CD)

I bought this based on the prior reviews. If you are at all interested, you should buy it, too. The price is crazy good and the choral music is just wonderful. The 2 instrumental CDs are interesting, and basically free. I have Palestrina pieces sung by the Tallis Scholars, the Hilliard Ensemble and the "Servants of the Holy Family and the Carmelite Sisters" (my favorite). The Chapelle du Roi on the Complete Works compares favorably.

Are 10 CDs too many? None are duds. There is something that I like a lot on each one. (Nine is not as good as the others, but it has beautiful and interesting music). It would be very hard to pick one or two discs from the set, and the set is the cost of three. Get the set.