John Taverner (c. 1490–1545) is regarded as the most important English comp… Read Full Bio ↴John Taverner (c. 1490–1545) is regarded as the most important English composer of his day. He was also an organist.
Taverner was the first Organist and Master of the Choristers at Christ Church, Oxford, appointed by Thomas Cardinal Wolsey in 1526. The college had been founded in 1525 by Wolsey, and was then known as Cardinal College. Immediately before this, Taverner had been a clerk fellow at the Collegiate Church of Tattershall, Lincolnshire. In 1528 he was reprimanded for his (probably minor) involvement with Lutherans, but escaped punishment for being "but a musician".
Wolsey fell from favour in 1529, and in 1530 Taverner left the college. So far as we can tell, he had no further musical appointments, nor can any of his known works be dated to after that time, so he may have ceased composition.
It is often said that after leaving Oxford Taverner worked as an agent of Thomas Cromwell assisting in the Dissolution of the Monasteries, although the veracity of this is now thought to be highly questionable. He is known to have settled eventually in Boston, Lincolnshire where he was a small landowner and reasonably well-off. He was appointed an alderman of Boston in 1545, shortly before his death on 18th October 1545. He is buried under the belltower at Boston Parish Church.
Most of Taverner's music is vocal, and includes masses, Magnificats and motets. The bulk of his output is thought to date from the 1520s. His best-known motet is Dum transisset sabbatum.
His best known mass is based on a popular song, The Western Wynde (John Sheppard and Christopher Tye later also wrote masses based on this same song). Taverner's Western Wynde mass is unusual for the period because the theme tune appears in each of the four parts at different times. Commonly his masses are designed so that each of the four sections (Gloria, Credo, Santus-Benedictus and Agnus) are the about same length, often achieved by putting the same number of repetitions of the thematic material in each. For example in the Western Wynde mass, the theme is repeated nine times in each section. As the sections have texts of very different lengths, he uses extended melisma in the movements with fewer words.
Several of his other masses use the widespread cantus firmus technique, where a plainchant melody with long note values is placed in an interior part, often the tenor. Examples of cantus firmus masses include Corona Spinea and Gloria tibi Trinitas. Another technique of composition is seen in his mass Mater Christi, which is based upon material taken from his motet of that name, and hence known as a "derived" or "parody" mass.
The mass Gloria tibi Trinitas gave origin to style of instrumental work known as an In nomine. Although the mass is in six parts, some more virtuosic sections are in reduced numbers of parts, presumably intended for soloists, a compositional technique used in several of his masses. The section at the words "in nomine..." in the Benedictus is in four parts, with the plainchant in the alto. This section of the mass became popular as an instrumental work for viol consort. Other composers came to write instrumental works modelled on this, and the name In nomine was given to works of this type.
Taverner was the first Organist and Master of the Choristers at Christ Church, Oxford, appointed by Thomas Cardinal Wolsey in 1526. The college had been founded in 1525 by Wolsey, and was then known as Cardinal College. Immediately before this, Taverner had been a clerk fellow at the Collegiate Church of Tattershall, Lincolnshire. In 1528 he was reprimanded for his (probably minor) involvement with Lutherans, but escaped punishment for being "but a musician".
Wolsey fell from favour in 1529, and in 1530 Taverner left the college. So far as we can tell, he had no further musical appointments, nor can any of his known works be dated to after that time, so he may have ceased composition.
It is often said that after leaving Oxford Taverner worked as an agent of Thomas Cromwell assisting in the Dissolution of the Monasteries, although the veracity of this is now thought to be highly questionable. He is known to have settled eventually in Boston, Lincolnshire where he was a small landowner and reasonably well-off. He was appointed an alderman of Boston in 1545, shortly before his death on 18th October 1545. He is buried under the belltower at Boston Parish Church.
Most of Taverner's music is vocal, and includes masses, Magnificats and motets. The bulk of his output is thought to date from the 1520s. His best-known motet is Dum transisset sabbatum.
His best known mass is based on a popular song, The Western Wynde (John Sheppard and Christopher Tye later also wrote masses based on this same song). Taverner's Western Wynde mass is unusual for the period because the theme tune appears in each of the four parts at different times. Commonly his masses are designed so that each of the four sections (Gloria, Credo, Santus-Benedictus and Agnus) are the about same length, often achieved by putting the same number of repetitions of the thematic material in each. For example in the Western Wynde mass, the theme is repeated nine times in each section. As the sections have texts of very different lengths, he uses extended melisma in the movements with fewer words.
Several of his other masses use the widespread cantus firmus technique, where a plainchant melody with long note values is placed in an interior part, often the tenor. Examples of cantus firmus masses include Corona Spinea and Gloria tibi Trinitas. Another technique of composition is seen in his mass Mater Christi, which is based upon material taken from his motet of that name, and hence known as a "derived" or "parody" mass.
The mass Gloria tibi Trinitas gave origin to style of instrumental work known as an In nomine. Although the mass is in six parts, some more virtuosic sections are in reduced numbers of parts, presumably intended for soloists, a compositional technique used in several of his masses. The section at the words "in nomine..." in the Benedictus is in four parts, with the plainchant in the alto. This section of the mass became popular as an instrumental work for viol consort. Other composers came to write instrumental works modelled on this, and the name In nomine was given to works of this type.
Dum Transisset Sabbatum
John Taverner Lyrics
We have lyrics for 'Dum Transisset Sabbatum' by these artists:
Taverner Consort & Choir Dum transisset Sabbatum, Maria Magdalene et Maria Jacobi et …
We have lyrics for these tracks by John Taverner:
Audivi vocem de caelo cudivi vocem de caelo venientem : Venite omnes virgines sapi…
Western Wind Mass: Credo Credo in unum Deum, Patrem omnipotentem, factorem caeli et t…
The lyrics are frequently found in the comments by searching or by filtering for lyric videos
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Matty Regelmaessig
Ethereal, the voices of angels. The individual voices float so effortlessly over and around the cantus firmus in the 1st bass.
Δεσποινα Μανιου
Υπεροχο!!!!
Kroko Fant
This is the theme of the ocean tribe when the dolphins are gathering ...
Anastasia Saward
Keeps moving well. Personally I prefer bar23 as written not as sung.
George Holloway
Agreed! I can't see the reason for that ficta.
Jacob Clark
any reason for the tenor seventh at bar four not being flattened?
g79 skyrocket
beware of cpdl ficta.. that flat should not occur until the second beat according to most scholars. besides, it's sings and sounds better. try singing that tenor line both ways. it's wonky the way its written above imo..also the text underlay is garbage in this score. what tenor wants to be singing 2 bars on "ee" ?...."oo" is much better with A-le-lu-i-a ...and it sounds better.
William Daffer
Of the three sources at cpdl.org, two follow the ficta in the example above. Personally, I think the performance gets it right. The first e natural is just a passing tone, while the 2nd has more harmonic heft and follows the rule of 'una nota supra la' in the transposed dorian mode based on G (which converts it to aeolian). Anyway, if I were thinking of doing this piece, I'd follow the Tallis Scholars approach.
Humphrey Thompson
This is not the Tallis Scholars, it’s Alamire under David Skinner. Please change description
Matthew Vine
Dr Skinner was introduced to this piece as an Alto Lay Clerk in Christ Church, Oxford. I was a Tenor Academical Clerk there for 3 years then for 1 year a Lay Clerk. We sang this in the stalls in the College where John Taverner was Informator Choristarum from 1526, with the identical forces of men and boys.
Once we performed this in around 1987 in St. Bertrand-de-Comminges in the Pyrenees.
You can't really beat something like that.