Thomas Tallis

1505 - 1585 AD

Thomas Tallis was an English composer closely associated with the British Crown. He worked as an organist at Canterbury Cathedral and served the courts of King Henry VIII, King Edward VI, Queen Mary, and Queen Elizabeth. His work is typical of the Renaissance polyphonic vocal style, although thanks to the resources available to him due to his association with the British Crown, some of his works are enormous in scale. His composition Spem in Alium, for example, is written for forty voices arranged into ten quartets.

His most impressive accomplishment, and an honest testament to his skill as a composer, may have been holding down a church job as a Roman Catholic throughout the entire English Reformation.