John Taverner

John Taverner worked in England in the first half of the sixteenth century, in the last decades before the Reformation transformed English church music. Born in Lincolnshire around 1490, he was appointed by Cardinal Wolsey as the first choirmaster of Cardinal College, Oxford, the institution now called Christ Church.

His masses and other Latin church pieces weave long, soaring lines for unaccompanied choir, several voices moving independently at once. One melody from his mass on the tune Gloria tibi Trinitas took on a life of its own: English composers borrowed it for instrumental pieces for more than a century afterward. In his last years he left music behind, retiring to Boston in Lincolnshire, where he died in 1545.

To hear him, look for recordings of his mass settings sung by an English cathedral-style choir; a single movement is enough to show why singers keep returning to this music.