The “sacred minimalism” of our contemporaries Arvo Pärt and John Tavener; then his almost-homonymous Taverner, who escaped the Anglican persecution by the skin of his teeth during the reign of Henry VIII. John Sheppard managed to get by switching between two different confessions, while his successor Thomas Tallis, a well-known “papist”, was saved thanks to Queen Elizabeth’s indulgence; on the other side, that of catholic Counter-Reformation, we have a Venetian, Giovanni Croce, and a Spanish, De Victoria. These composers “for the glory of Lord” are linked together by the mastery of the Tallis Scholars, virtuoso of “a cappella” polyphony.
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