Description
The intimate and prayerful text of O nata lux originates from the tenth century and is traditionally associated with the Feast of the Transfiguration, which commemorates the moment in the Gospels when the disciples witness Jesus radiant with divine light, clothed in angelic splendour.
In his setting, Thomas Tallis captures the text’s spiritual intensity in music that is both passionate and harmonically rich. A hallmark of his style, the use of false relations – bristling clashes between chromatically opposing notes – adds a disorienting feeling as the harmonic ground momentarily shifts.
© Owain Park 2025
O nata lux de lumine
Jesu redemptor saeculi,
Dignare clemens supplicum
Laudes precesque sumere.
Qui carne quondam contegi
Dignatus es pro perditis,
Nos membra confer effici
Tui beati corporis.
O light born of light,
Jesus, redeemer of the age,
deign mercifully to hear
suppliants’ praises and prayers.
You who once deigned to take on flesh
on behalf of the damned,
grant that we be made limbs
of your blessed body.
Hymn at Lauds on the Feast of the Transfiguration
