4th September 2005
There was a prom concert on Radio 3 late on Thursday evening. Not the stirring and triumphant sounds of the last night, but motets from 16th century composers. This year is the 500th anniversary of the birth of Thomas Tallis, one of the fathers of English church music. No one knows where or when exactly he was born, the records are lost, but it is believed he was born in 1505, possibly in Kent because his first recorded appointment is as organist of Dover Priory. He died on 23rd November 1585, aged 80, having been organist at Waltham Abbey in Essex before the reformation, a member of the choir of Canterbury Cathedral after the reformation and later part of the Chapel Royal, where a good deal of his music dates from.
Much of his music can just lift you straight to heaven. It’s what I call ‘beam me up Scotty music’. It has an ethereal quality to it that transports our spirits to the awe and wonder of heaven. And this is precisely what worship should do; it should connect us with a vision of glory, with a vision of heaven. After all we are worshipping God, not ourselves; we seek to touch the divine and be touched by it so that our lives may reflect more fully the image of the one who creates us. So it is not unconcerned with our daily struggles, but lifts us through them and beyond them so that we may face them renewed.
I find this all the more remarkable because Thomas Tallis, and his star pupil William Byrd, were composing through one of the most troubled and violent periods in English history. Thomas Tallis was born under the reign of Henry 7th and worked through the Reformation and religious to-ings and fro-ings of Henry 8th, Edward 6th, Mary and finally Elizabeth 1st. In that period Catholics were burnt for treason, then Protestants were burnt for heresy, then things settled down a bit under Elizabeth and Thomas Tallis and William Byrd are examples of how she refused to make windows into men’s souls, both probably retaining their Catholic allegiances.
Taliis is an example of someone who could navigate a way through the turbulence of the 16th century religious swings and in so doing still keep his eyes on the vision of glory that inspires his music. It is quite a profound witness and a lifting of our senses from the struggles that keep us earth bound to the one who is above all these. Through his music he reminds us where our true treasure lies, where our true allegiance is to be given, and thereby gives us a gentle nudge to have a right perspective on our disputes.
We obviously live in a different age, 500 years later, but we still need this restoration of a right perspective. Disputes or disagreements are part of life, because we all see things differently sometimes but the challenge from composers like Thomas Tallis is to remember whose image we are made in. It is not our own and others are not to be made in our image, we are all called to the image of God, to reflect the glory of God and let that glory dwell in us. Music has a powerful way of drawing this aspiration to the fore and giving it the oxygen it needs to breathe, even give us the space we need to dare to let go and learn to trust in God’s future rather than our own.
Our first reading, from Paul’s letter to the Romans (13:8-end), touched on this theme. It exhorted love as being the way to live. Not just the intimate love of partners and even close family and friends, but love so filling our hearts that it is the way we approach everyone. It ‘does no wrong to a neighbour’. We are to ‘owe no one anything, except to love one another’. We have a debt of gratitude that should be repaid with the same grace that gives cause for this gratitude.
The gratitude comes from the grace of God who loves us so much that he gave us life in the first place and wonderfully restores that life in the glory to be revealed. We call this grace, it is a free gift and like all free gifts it is to touch us deeply so that we are moved from hatred to love, from selfish gain to generous thankfulness.
There was a prayer at the end of one of the psalms at evening prayer the other day. It exhorted us to ‘make known God’s grace and walk in the ways of peace’ (Daily Prayer: Psalm 67).
Creation is wonderfully made. It contains a natural balance that makes life possible. It has an awesome power in wind and earthquake, sunshine and storm: all part of the forces that create and destroy. It also includes the transforming power of music. This is a much more subtle power because it gets under our skin and proclaims the glory of God. It reminds us in whose image we are made and assists with gaining a right perspective in all things.
I began with Thomas Tallis and so I will end with a piece of his music. One week we have the Crazy Frog, today Tallis - I suspect I can guess which you will prefer. This is his short setting of the Latin text, O nata lux
© Ian Black 2005