What is Thomas Tallis?
[[Image:Thomas Tallis.jpg|thumb|Thomas Tallis]] '''Thomas Tallis''' (born c.1505; died [[Greenwich]] [[November 23]] [[1585]]) was the most important [[England|English]] [[composer]] of his [[generation]]. We know very little about Tallis’s youth. He may have started his career as organist at [[Dover]] and then Waltham Abbey. After the [[Dissolution of the monasteries]] he had a job at [[Canterbury Cathedral]] for a short time. He was soon made a Gentleman of the [[Chapel Royal]]. He had a job in the royal household until his death. He worked for four [[monarch]]s: [[Henry VIII of England|Henry VIII]], [[Edward VI of England|Edward VI]], [[Mary I of England|Mary Tudor]] and [[Elizabeth I of England|Elizabeth I]]. Tallis was an [[organist]] and [[composer]]. He had to write music for the royal chapels. He was given the [[lease]] of a big house in [[Kent]] and a [[salary]] of £91 12s a year (12s is 60p in modern [[money]]). That was a very good [[salary]] in those days. In [[1575]], Queen Elizabeth I gave Tallis and [[William Byrd]] a licence which meant they were the only people allowed to [[printing|print]] and [[Publishing|publish]] music in England (music printing was a very new invention at the time). Tallis owned a house in [[Greenwich]] where he died in 1585. In the early 16th century church music was often very polyphonic. Voices imitated one another and sang different things at the same time. Tallis wrote church music which was much simpler. In a lot of his music the choir sing homophonic music instead of using the older polyphony. For a short time, during the reign of the Catholic Mary Tudor, polyphonic music was in fashion again. This was the time when Tallis wrote an antiphon “Gaude gloriosa Dei mater” and a mass musical setting|mass “Puer natus est nobis”. These two works are once more very complicated polyphonic works. After that his works become simpler once more, but he was always keen to try out new ideas from the continent of Europe. He wrote some very fine anthems. Many of his work