Leo Treitler begins his article ‘Gender and Other Dualities of Music History’ with the claim that

The idea of the concretization – that in the perceptions of a particular collective an individual work or the works of a given composer will assume a distinct shape that can be identified and that will change with time and circumstance – has underpinned this discussion so far. In this concluding chapter, however, I will take an essentially different approach: I will shift my focus away from perceptions of Tallis and his music to the ‘discourses of myth’ that surrounded them and the stories that were told about them. I will concentrate on the intersection of Tallis's Responses with myths of English national and religious identity, paying particular attention to the claim that the harmony with which Tallis ‘clothed’ the plainsong was, in some sense, inherently English. I will also examine the implications of the belief that the reign of Elizabeth was a golden age, particularly for church music, which was followed, more or less inevitably, by a period of corruption and decline.