Adrian Batten (c. 1591–1637), Short communion service

Batten was born in Salisbury and worked as a vicar choral at Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s Cathedral.  He was instrumental in the development of the verse anthem, a distinctively English form of the seventeenth century.  As a noted music copyist his important volume The Batten Organbook is the only surviving source for many of the most significant works of the period.

Thomas Tallis lived from c 1505 to 1585, and was an elder colleague of William Byrd, with whom he collaborated in publishing. One of the finest composers of his generation, his church music encompasses a wide variety of styles from complex works for the Latin Rite to more simple but no less effective pieces with English words that were composed for the reformed rites of Edward VI and Elizabeth. O Lord, give thy Holy Spirit is a largely syllabic setting of a text from Lidley’s prayers of 1566.

John Blitheman (c. 1525–1591), In pace, in idipsum

Very little is known about Blitheman’s life, except that he succeeded Tallis as organist of the Chapel Royal in 1585.  This anthem, which sets a responsory text from compline, alternates imitative choral sections with plainchant verses.