Over four decades of performance and a catalog of award-winning recordings, Peter Phillips and The Tallis Scholars have done more than any other group to establish sacred vocal music of the Renaissance as one of the great repertoires of Western music. A dozen years after their 2004 SMF debut, the 2016 Tallis Scholars program is designed to showcase some of the most extraordinary English polyphony by masters from throughout the Renaissance period. Davy’s Salve regina is the earliest work to be included, originally contained in the Eton Choirbook, and typically virtuosic. Taverner’s influential Western Wynde mass, also famously virtuosic, comes next, followed by Tallis’ Lamentations. Alfonso Ferrabosco is a curiosity in this context, being a naturalized Englishman, though Italian by birth. His Lamentations are obviously indebted to Tallis. The concert is topped and tailed by three famous motets by the latest master in the collection: William Byrd. Some of the greatest English repertoire, performed by one of the great English groups.