Although evidence suggests that the pairing of sacred works by Tudor composers was a popular compositional practice, the extensive loss of music from this period makes it difficult to discern to what degree this actually occurred. Of the surviving works that have been paired according to musical or textual similarities, a large number appear to have been written for specific liturgical or government-related celebrations. The sacred works involved in these groupings include cyclic masses, votive antiphons, and Magnificats, and it is the mass-antiphon pairs that have survived in greatest number. The degree to which each pair is related varies greatly, from a pair sharing the same cantus firmus, to a pair containing extensive cross-quotation, to a pair in which the similarities are vague enough to be considered coincidental. A more thorough investigation of techniques and purposes for the grouping of sacred works is needed to determine the historical importance of this practice.

Works: (listed as pairs or groupings): Aston: Missa Te matrem Dei and Te matrem Dei (9, 11); Taverner: Missa Mater Christi and Mater Christi (9, 12), Small Devotion Mass and O Christe Jesu (9, 12); Fayrfax: Missa Albanus and O Maria Deo grata (9, 11); Tallis: Missa Puer natus and Suscipe quaeso (9,12); Fayrfax: Missa O bone Jesu and O bone Jesu (antiphon and Magnificat) (10, 11), Missa Regali ex progenie, Gaude flore virginali, and Regale (10, 11); Tye: Missa Euge bone and Quaesumus omnipotens (10, 12); Ludford: Missa Inclina and Ave Maria ancilla Trinitatis (11), Missa Bendicta et venerabilis and Benedicta (11); Pashe: Missa Christus resurgens and Magnificat (11-12); Tallis: Missa Salve intemerata and Salve intemerata (12).

Index Classifications: 1500s

Contributed by: Sherri Winks