Bone Pastor by Thomas Tallis
  • MNCantor
    Posts: 3
    Hello! The last few years our parish choir has been singing "Bone Pastor" by Thomas Tallis. This piece has the same music as "If Ye Love Me", but a Latin text. When I first learned it, I was told Tallis himself put the text to the music. Basically two versions of the same music, one for the Anglicans and one for the Catholics, one with an English text, one with a Latin text. I tried to verify this with an internet search, but came up with nothing. Do any of you scholarly types know how I can find out whether Tallis put the music to this text, or if it was some later musician? The "Bone Pastor" text fits the music quite well in my opinion, but curious whose idea it was. Thanks! Pax tecum.
    Bone Pastor - Tallis.pdf
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  • OrganistRob320OrganistRob320
    Posts: 170
    According to its CPDL page it was a Terry arrangement in 1902.
  • sdtalley3sdtalley3
    Posts: 278
    @MNCantor
    Mr. Gibb’s edition has some glaring flaws in it but if you pm me I can send you a corrected edition I recently had done.
  • Bone Pastor, though good, is much inferior to the original, and I think from this alone you can tell it wasn't arranged by Tallis himself.
    Thanked by 2CHGiffen tomjaw
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,874
    sdtalley3, Why wouldn't you contribute a corrected edition to CPDL?
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  • sdtalley3sdtalley3
    Posts: 278
    @Richard Mix
    Because Sir, I struggle to find time to do this and it is probably easier than I am guessing, I do editorial work for my choir, but aside from that, my day job as a well contractor is demanding of my time, and the commute to and from work each day. It’s a can I keep kicking down the road unfortunately.
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  • tomjaw
    Posts: 2,859
    @CHGiffen If this corrected edition was posted here, could one of us add it to CPDL?
  • GerardH
    Posts: 550
    @sdtalley3 I feel you. Only recently contributed my first edition to cpdl out of frustration with how egregious were the errors of James Gibb et al. It's an unfortunately involved process.

    I do sometimes feel bad about not contributing more—cpdl is such a wonderful resource!
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  • sdtalley3sdtalley3
    Posts: 278
    Let me see if I can post mine here and feel free to do with it as you will or even correct it further.
  • sdtalley3sdtalley3
    Posts: 278
    The order is backwards in the images, and I’m not used to doing this from my phone, but here it is. Not to excoriate Mr. Gibbs, and am sure he was working off a source as well, but some of the noting in the Alto section was either not there at all or entered on a weak beat on a dissonance that wasn’t prepared, and comparing it to the English video by the Cambridge Singers, I couldn’t help myself at not fixing those issues.
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  • sdtalley3sdtalley3
    Posts: 278
    @GerardH
    I am eternally grateful to all the contributors on CPDL over the years as its made many things more accessible! The flip side of that coin is some of the editions are dated or the software and format just weren’t up to par in those days, and for me a sloppy output is even more disappointing than a choir messing up the music. The earlier days of contributing to CPDL were really the Wild West.
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  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,874
    In the past contributing has been a real pain, to be sure, and the updated procedure perhaps not be as obvious as it might be. For this case, you could go to the If ye love me (Thomas Tallis) page, look for the "Add new edition" tab (5th from the right, at top), and fill the blanks on the AddWorkForm for "Name of editor/contributor", "Email of editor/contributor" (and once again at the end for "
    Your email address (for notification/questions):") and then use the "Upload now" button at "Sheet music location (give URL, or name of file)".

    If you ignore the "Notes about edition" ("With contrafact text Bone Pastor, transposed an interval down/up") someone else will usually fill it sooner or later.
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  • sdtalley3sdtalley3
    Posts: 278
    @Richard Mix
    I’ll see if I can give it a go soon.