I do. It’s beautiful. But, I think it is not so favored because it and the Palestrina setting of “Sicut Cervus” are used so frequently.

I like it for its beauty but it doesn't seem to follow rules of traditional polyphony/counterpoint stylewise (I really don't understand counterpoint!). It works very well as a Pentecost anthem, or even more as a Holy Thursday anthem.

I like it with the Latin text, Bone Pastor.

Charles,

I'm very pleased (just this once) to cite an anecdote: at my urging, our choir learned the pars secunda, Sitivit Anima Mea.

I'm not a Mozart detractor. I've loved his music all my life and could hum, sing, whistle, and think all the orchestral parts to many of his symphonies throughout my adolescent years. I've played his sonatas and concertos, and never tire of hearing his music. It is miraculous. But of his Ave verum I have nothing beyond an appreciation of its high craftsmanship, its beguiling simplicity which hides genius - the same may be said of Eine kleine nachtmusik. This appreciation does not translate into 'like'. It is a decent example of 'classical schmaltz' which, though it lacks any liturgical cachet, is innately better than other kinds of schmaltz. Why would anyone sing this at mass when the likes of Byrd were available? Charles is quite right: Mozart's would-be-church-music is too infected with stage and concert hall idioms to be taken seriously as liturgical music. <> While I continue to reap joy from playing his piano music, I have never learnt, nor do I like, his organ works. My first youthful impression of them was that they were mechanical clockwork pieces. I later found out that that was indeed their original conception.

I love this motet. To avoid the ultra-high tenor entry (our tenors tend to be on the strident side) we are trying it a tone down (in Eflat) as an experiment. Not sure it works.
NB also that Sir R R Terry set the words of Bone Pastor to the same tune. I think the term is 'contrafactum'.

Transposed editions of the Tallis (whose original is in C, no accidentals in the key signature) have been made in F, E, E-flat, D, and even a very high edition in G (perhaps for a women's or mostly women's choir). Attempts to make the work "fit" a particular choir or group other than the originally intended group might well be fraught with difficulties or compromises or imperfect solutions. That's life.

As a work that can succeed with mixed SATB IYLMKMC stands out from other Tallis anthems, even if it does offer challenges to soprano & tenor (we sing it in F# usually); Verily I say unto you verges on a bridge to far.

I'm not familiar enough with sources to know if the low clef C major transposition can be really called 'original'.

Does anyone know of an arrangement for TTBB?

Does anyone know of an arrangement for TTBB?

The Tambling edition posted above will work for TTBB, but be aware that the 1st tenor has some high Gs, and the 2nd tenor has high Fs as well as one high G.

I like "If ye love me" a lot, but I find its frequent programming at weddings, rather pastorally inappropriate. Just because it has the word "love" in it doesn't make it fitting.

It would never have entered my mind that 'If Ye...' would or could ever be heard at a wedding. Do people read beyond the word, 'love'? Or do they (probably the brides) envision that their unfortunate spouses will be obedient to their every 'command' and whim to show their 'love'? I would never consent to doing this at a wedding. It isn't a wedding text and has nothing to do with weddings - unless one has the cruel perversity somehow to connect love to spousal obedience.

It would never have occurred to me that a couple, in asking for this text to be sung at their wedding Mass, were suggesting/implying that it referred to a command of one spouse to another. Rather, it is part of the Final Discourse, and a further explication of the Mandatum. In that sense, it is far from a perverse connection to matrimony. Matrimony requires discipleship. The abiding of the Holy Spirit is also part of Matrimony. Matrimony is not merely between the spouses - it is also centered on God. So, it is indeed connected - in substance. Somewhat elliptically, but neither perversely nor remotely. Not my first choice for a wedding anthem, but it's not a bad choice at all.

Viola

Ah, you don't have tenor section any more, it seems, at least for repertoire that requires genuine tenors. Amateur tenor choristers often are impressed into solo or duo duty, it seems, and often overcompensate for lack of balance with other sections, and too many choir directors subconsciously conspire with that dynamic because they crave a broader repertoire in spite of a lack of proper resources. My impression is that many volunteer church choirs are really SABarB (or, more accurately, Mezz-A-Bar-B) rather than SATB properly speaking.

JulieColl >> When we sing it, one of my friends in the congregation always starts crying.

now and then people come up to me after Mass and say, when you sang _____ today, it made me cry. I say yes, we can have that effect on people, I'm sorry.
Sometimes it's Father.
And when it is, you're likely to hear something from the pulpit about more singers being needed for the Choir.
;-)

Well, the practice of many choir directors is often to ignore reality of that type, and I think that's wrong and is part of what contributes to subpar sound of too many choirs. (In particular, there's a pernicious assumption that baritones are merely lazy tenors.) I think the better course of action is to program in light of the reality and, ideally, to recruit genuine top voices (there's a bell curve distribution of voice ranges, and mezzos are the dominant female voice, and baritones the dominant male voice - true SATB voices are actually outliers on the distribution curves for women and men, respectively). While it's true the repertoire (plus vocal training) can be used as a tool to expand, shall we say, the reality by two or three semitones, in practice the timeline of the opportunity is glacial and has physical limits.