Editorial

There are moments in life you never forget. One of those moments for me was hearing Vaughan Williams's Fantasia on a theme of Thomas Tallis on the radio—or, rather, hearing the last part of the Fantasia, as I tuned in only when it was about halfway through, and had no idea what it was until the back announcement. I was transfixed, enraptured by what I heard. What could this theme be? My only experience of Tallis up to that point (I think I was about 15 years old) and been to sing his Preces and Responses in the (all-female) school choir. Tallis has been a part of my life ever since, from recordings (at high pitch, of course) by David Wulstan and the Clerkes of Oxenford, and singing in Spem in alium in St Mark's Square on my 21st birthday during a Clare College choir tour to Venice, to devising a Tallis Day to mark the 500th anniversary of the year taken to be that of his birth at this autumn's Early Music Weekend at London's South Bank Centre. The Latin-texted church music, the music for the Anglican liturgy, the pieces for viols and for keyboard: I find it all enthralling and deeply moving.

Tallis was undoubtedly a genius: on his death, William Byrd, his most distinguished pupil, lamented 'Tallis is dead and music dies.' Research over the last 25 years has done much to increase our knowledge of his life and to establish a chronological order for his works, leading to a reassessment of his achievements as a composer. However, it is puzzling that it is just a handful of his works that are really well known—a point made in the Summer 2005 edition of Musical times by Peter Phillips (who in the August issue of Early music discussed aspects of performing Tallis, drawing on empirical observation resulting from the many years he and the Tallis Scholars have been singing his music). Stephen Rice, in his article in this issue on the reconstruction of Tallis's Latin Magnificat and Nunc dimittis, also points out that 'certain pieces seem to dominate the landscape at the expense of others', and it is curious that, as Timothy Day makes clear in his survey of Tallis on record, there was no commercial recording of his music until 1948. With the completion of Chapelle du Roi's splendid series (nine CDs in total) for Signum Records, this more or less random unevenness in Tallis reception should, finally, become a thing of the past.

It was with great sadness that I learnt of the death of Howard Schott in May this year. Howard was very much involved with Early music right from the beginning: the list of his contributions runs to two and a half columns in the 25-year index, and there have been quite a few more since that was published in 1998, most recently his article on the revival of the clavichord (xxxii/4 (Nov 2004), pp.595-604). Howard's knowledge of the early keyboard and its repertory was all-encompassing and profound; having studied with Ralph Kirkpatrick at Yale, he developed a particular interest in the music of J. J. Froberger, and made this composer the subject of the dissertation for the DPhil which he took at Oxford in 1978. (Details of his main publications can be found in Paul Cienniwa's obituary in this issue.) Throughout the rest of his life he combined his musicological interests with practising in the more arcane reaches of insurance law. A laser-clear mind (which he was not afraid to speak), and a pithily elegant turn of phrase were characteristic of Howard, both in conversation and on the page. In his first ever contribution to Early music (ii/2 (Jul 1974), pp.187-9), a published interview by George Malcolm received short shrift: 'I am', wrote Howard in his typically dry style, 'not a great admirer of his playing but I respect his frankness. This unregenerate sinner is at no pains whatever to conceal his relative unconcern with historical sounds and performance practices.' I spoke with Howard on the phone just a...