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Alexandra Coghlan for Building a Library surveys recordings of Tallis's Lamentations of Jeremiah.

Thomas Tallis set the first and second lessons of Tenebrae for Maundy Thursday in the 1560s at a time when it was popular to make musical settings of the Holy Week readings from the Book of Jeremiah. These haunting settings are among Tallis's most performed pieces. Composed during the turbulent years of the mid 16th Century, Tallis's Lamentations have most often been read as a personal and private lament on the state of English religious life.