Taverner «MIssa Gloria Tibi Trinitas»
Not a great deal is known about the life of John Taverner. He is thought to have been born around 1490 in Lincolnshire, and is first documented in 1525 as a lay clerk at the collegiate church of Tattershall, a musical establishment of some importance. Later that year he was recommended by Bishop Longland of Lincoln for the new post of Informator (choirmaster) at Cardinal College (now Christ Church), Oxford, founded by Cardinal Wolsey and lavishly endowed with a choir of sixteen choristers and twelve ‘clerkes skilled in polyphony’. After overcoming an initial reluctance to leave the security of Tattershall, he accepted this prestigious invitation in time for the formal opening of the College in October 1526. Its glory proved to be short-lived, however, and after Wolsey’s fall from power in 1529 its fortunes and finances soon began to decline. Taverner resigned the post in 1530. For the next seven years his whereabouts are unknown. Possibly he worked as a freelance musician in London, or perhaps he returned directly to Lincolnshire. From 1537 Taverner was in Boston, maybe employed as an agent for Thomas Cromwell, who had been commissioned by Henry VIII to carry out a survey and valuation of the lesser monasteries and friaries prior to their dissolution. There is no truth in the persistent claim that Taverner was a fanatical persecutor in carrying out these duties. The significance of the often-quoted note in the 1583 edition of Foxe’s Acts and Monuments that Taverner came ‘to repent him very much that he had made songs to popish ditties in the time of his blindness’ may well have been exaggerated; Foxe, an ardent Protestant, was writing some forty years after the composer’s death, and the term ‘popish ditties’ remains open to interpretation. On the contrary, there is documentary evidence that Taverner had genuine concern for the welfare of the monks and friars. The assumption that he ceased to compose after leaving Oxford is based on speculation, since a proportion of his output has probably been lost and what has survived is not always easy to date.
Taverner died in 1545 and was buried beneath the famous ‘stump’ of Boston church.
As the undisputed master of his generation, Taverner witnessed and greatly contributed to the final phase in the development of the florid style that had dominated English sacred music since the death of John Dunstable in 1453. If the works of Taverner’s immediate precursor, William Cornysh (died 1523), represent the peak of sheer virtuosity, those of Taverner himself seem to proceed along a rather more serene path regulated as much by harmonic considerations as purely melodic ones.
Compositor británico de principios de la época Tudor. Parece que creció en el condado de Lincoln (Inglaterra), formó parte del coro de la colegiata de Tattershall y a continuación trabajó en Londres (1514-1520), aunque estos datos no han podido ser confirmados. Se sabe que en 1525 cantaba en el coro de Tattershall y que al año siguiente fue nombrado maestro de coro del recién creado Cardinal College de Oxford (actualmente Christ Church). Allí fue encarcelado por hereje al defender la religión luterana. Posteriormente fue perdonado por el cardenal Wolsey «por no ser más que un músico». Cuando Wolsey perdió el favor de Enrique VIII, el Cardinal College entró en una fase de abandono y en 1530 Taverner se retiró a Boston, condado de Lincoln, para el resto de sus días. Aunque en Boston participó en actos reformistas en nombre de Thomas Cromwell, se cree que nunca abandonó la fe católica. La música de Taverner es el epítome del estilo florido inglés de transición entre la música gótica y la renacentista. Su obra posterior es más sencilla y abre el camino a otros músicos como Thomas Tallis. Es autor de ocho misas, tres de las cuales son obras elaboradas a seis voces como la misa Gloria tibi trinitas, tres magnificat, antífonas votivas y responsos como Dum transisset sabbatum.