Suscipe quaeso Domine - Si enim iniquitates (Thomas Tallis)

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• CPDL #18175:

Editor: David Fraser (submitted 2008-10-24).   Score information: A4, 17 pages, 208 kbytes   Copyright: CPDL

Edition notes: Up a minor third from written pitch for SSAATBB.

• CPDL #18170:

Editor: David Fraser (submitted 2008-10-23).   Score information: A4, 17 pages, 202 kbytes   Copyright: CPDL

Edition notes: At original written pitch for AATTBBB

General Information

Title: Suscipe quaeso Domine - Si enim iniquitates
Composer: Thomas Tallis

Number of voices: 7vv   Voicing: AATTBBB
Genre: Sacred, Motet

Language: Latin
Instruments: a cappella
Published: Cantiones sacrae (1575), nos.27-28

Description: It has been suggested that this work may have been written as a companion to the 7-part Missa Puer natus est nobis, and so to date from around 1554. However, it appears stylistically to be more closely related to Tallis's Elizabethan works, especially Spem in alium.

External websites:

Original text and translations

Latin text

Suscipe quaeso Domine vocem confitentis.
Scelera mea non defendo: peccavi.
Deus, miserere mei, peccavi: dele culpas meas gratia tua.
Si enim iniquitates recordaberis, quis sustineat?
Quis enim justus se dicere audeat sine peccato esse?
Nullus est enim mundus in conspectu tuo.

St Isidore of Seville (c.560-636)

English translation

Receive, I beseech, O Lord, the voice of one who confesses.
I do not defend my misdeeds: I have sinned. O God, have mercy upon me.
By thy grace blot out my sins.
For if thou shalt remember iniquities, who could endure it?
For who is so righteous that he dare say that he is without sin?
For none is pure in thy sight.