January 30 - Johann Joachim Quantz; Thomas Tallis (The Musical Birthday Series)

Johann Joachim Quantz (30 January 1697 – 12 July 1773) composed hundreds of compositions, mostly for flute, but is now remembered for his treatise on flute-playing.

Enough is Enough

Surely no one really wants

To hear another work by Quantz.

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Thomas Tallis (c. 1505 – 23 November 1585) was an extremely important English composer. We do not, in fact, know when he was born, but some sources cite tentative evidence pointing to 30 January, so... why not?

Challenge Accepted

Thomas Tallis had the smarts

To write motets in forty parts.

Thomas Tallis was unbaffled

By this contrapuntal scaffold.

Thomas Tallis won the laurel

In the sweepstakes polychoral.

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Reasonable Question

When forty parts sing at one time

Is the sound just a mess or sublime?

Is it gorgeous sonority

Produced with authority,

Or noise without reason or rhyme?

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Reasonable Answer

Just many parts can you get

In the loft for a choral motet?

Said Tallis,”I’m sporty,

I’ll try to do forty.

The tallest score I’ve written yet.”

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