Choral evensong is one of the great cultural and religious treasures of the Anglican Church. At the Reformation, in the 16th century, when services were for the first time conducted in English instead of Latin, Archbishop Cranmer developed the format for this service by combining two of the evening services in the monastic tradition, vespers and compline. Great Elizabethan musicians such as Thomas Tallis and William Byrd developed exquisite polyphonic choral music for this service, and with its 16th-century language and wealth of musical settings it has been performed by choirs in cathedrals, ...
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