John Taverner (around 1490 – October 18, 1545) is regarded as the most important English composer of his era. He was also an organist. Events Tirant Lo Blanc by Joanot Martorell, Martí Joan De Galba is published. ... October 18 is the 291st day of the year (292nd in leap years). ... Events February 27 - Battle of Ancrum Moor - Scots victory over superior English forces December 13 - Official opening of the Council of Trent (closed 1563) Battle of Kawagoe - between two branches of Uesugi families and the late Hojo clan in Japan. ... Motto: (French for God and my right) Anthem: God Save the King/Queen Capital London Largest city London Official language(s) English (de facto) Unification    - by Athelstan AD 927  Area    - Total 130,395 km² (1st in UK)   50,346 sq mi  Population    - 2006 est. ... A composer is a person who writes music. ... An organist is a musician who plays the organ, whether pipe or electronic. ...

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. He is buried under the belltower at Boston Parish Church. College name Christ Church Named after Jesus Christ Established 1546 Sister College Trinity College Dean The Very Revd Christopher Andrew Lewis JCR President William Dorsey Undergraduates 426 MCR or GCR President {{{MCR President}}} Graduates 154 Home page Boat Club Christ Church (Latin: Ædes Christi, the temple or house of Christ... Thomas Wolsey, (circa March 1471-1475 – November 28 or November 29, 1530), born Thomas Wulcy in Ipswich, Suffolk, England, was a powerful English statesman and a cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. ... January 14 - Treaty of Madrid. ... Events January 21 - The Swiss Anabaptist Movement was born when Conrad Grebel, Felix Manz, George Blaurock, and about a dozen others baptized each other in the home of Manzs mother on Neustadt-Gasse, Zürich, breaking a thousand-year tradition of church-state union. ... Events June 19 - Battle of Landriano - A French army in Italy under Marshal St. ... Events April 22 - Treaty of Saragossa divides the eastern hemisphere between Spain and Portugal, stipulating that the dividing line should lie 297. ... June 25 - Augsburg confession presented to Charles V of Holy Roman Empire. ... Thomas Cromwell: detail from a portrait by Hans Holbein, 1532-3 Thomas Cromwell, 1st Earl of Essex ( 1485 - July 28, 1540) was an English statesman, one of the most important political figures of the reign of Henry VIII of England. ... The Dissolution of the Monasteries, referred to by Roman Catholic writers as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the formal process during the English Reformation by which King Henry VIII confiscated the property of the monastic institutions in England between 1538 and 1541. ... Events February 27 - Battle of Ancrum Moor - Scots victory over superior English forces December 13 - Official opening of the Council of Trent (closed 1563) Battle of Kawagoe - between two branches of Uesugi families and the late Hojo clan in Japan. ...

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". The Mass, a form of sacred musical composition, is a choral composition that sets the fixed portions of the Eucharistic liturgy (principally that of the Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, generally known in the US as the Episcopal Church, and also the Lutheran Church) to music. ... The Visitation in the Book of Hours of the Duc of Berry The Magnificat (also known as the Song of Mary) is a canticle frequently sung (or said) liturgically in Christian church services. ... In Western music, motet is a word that is applied to a number of highly varied choral musical compositions. ...

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. The Western Wynde is a 16th century song whose tune was used as the basis (cantus firmus) of masses by English composers John Taverner, Christopher Tye and John Sheppard. ... John Sheppard (around 1515–1558) was an English composer and organist. ... Christopher Tye (around 1505 - around 1572) was an English composer and organist. ... In music, melisma (commonly known as vocal runs or simply runs) is the technique of changing the note (pitch) of a syllable of text while it is being sung. ...

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. In music, a cantus firmus (fixed song) is a pre-existing melody forming the basis of a polyphonic composition, often set apart by being played in long notes. ...

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. Alternate meaning: In Nomine (role-playing game) In Nomine was a title given to a number of English pieces of music in the 16th and 17th centuries based on the plainsong Gloria tibi Trinitas and on a section of John Taverners mass itself based on that theme. ...

The life of Taverner was the subject of Taverner, an opera by Peter Maxwell Davies. The Teatro alla Scala in Milan. ... Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, CBE (b. ...

See also

• Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford

Christ Church Cathedral spire. ...

References

• John Taverner (c.1495–1545)

External links

• Free scores by John Taverner in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
• Classical Net information