Our service of Choral Evensong at 5 pm March 27 will include the “Short” service of Thomas Tallis.

The service begins with an organ prelude at 4:45 pm by guest organist Brenden Hall. The Responses are by William Smith; the Anthem is Tallis’s “O sacrum convivium.” The “Short” service is set in the Dorian mode, corresponding to the piano keyboard’s white notes from D to D.

It is “a gem of Renaissance music,” one critic says, and a memorial tablet in Greenwich, England, calls Tallis “the father of English Church Music.” Tallis (1508-85) composed and performed for Henry VIII and his three children, who all reigned: Edward VI, Mary, and Elizabeth I. Throughout his service to successive monarchs as organist and composer, Tallis avoided the religious controversies that raged around him and, like his brilliant pupil William Byrd, stayed “an unreformed Roman Catholic.”

You can hear the Magnificat from the “Short” Service sung by the Trinity (Cleveland, Ohio) Chamber Singers here. The Cathedral Chamber Choir will sing. Dwight Thomas is director and organist.