Arranger: John Kinyon (1918-2002)

John Kinyon was a music educator, composer, and arranger. He used many pseudonyms over the years, making it hard for people to distinguish his work automatically. He worked in public schools with music from elementary schools all the way to college.

Composer: Thomas Tallis (1505/23 – 1585)

Thomas Tallis was one of England’s greatest composers. He was one of the first composers during his time period to form a relationship with words and music (songs!). Mr. Tallis was also one of the first composers to change the words anthems into English instead of Latin.

Background About the Piece:

The word chorale is directly related to a chorus, it means a hymn or psalm sung to a traditional or composed melody in church. In other words, a chorale is the four vocal part songs you would traditionally hear is a Catholic church. A canon is when voices or instruments sing/play the same musical line starting at different times. A common type of canon used is the round. Therefore, this piece is a chorale and a canon based off themes of Thomas Tallis’s compositions.

Compositional Techniques:

As you all have realized, Chorale and Canon is quite repetitive with the melody in the upper woowinds for the majority of the time. In order for this piece to not get boring, Mr. Kinyon wrote a few changes throughout the piece that not only keep the musicians attention but they keep the audiences attention as well!

• Dynamics – Throughout the piece, the high woodwinds have the melody the majority of the time. That being said, playing a super long line at the same volume over and over can not only be exausting but boring! Because of this threat of being boring, Mr. Kinyon inserted dynamics allowing the piece to grow and shrink in contrast.
• Phrasing – All the overarching lines located all over you music has a purpose! It is to help you keep the musical idea propeling forward instead of dragging behind. The phrasing is together until we get to rehearsal number 25 and then the phrasing becomes the canon of the piece!

Here is a link to a recording of Theme on Thomas Tallis!