Thomas Weelkes' ten Services embrace the full range of early seventeenth century service styles ranging from concise to extended full and verse settings. The 'Eighth' Service*, in the full style, strikes a shrewd balance between the economy of the 'short' and the expansiveness of the 'great' service, and so constitutes a distinctive contribution to the genre. All that remains is an organ part which, fortunately, is unusually detailed, allowing the vocal texture to be realised with confidence. The Service comprises two morning and two evening canticles: Te Deum laudamus, Jubilate Deo; Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis. The evening canticles are familiar through reconstructions by Edmund Fellowes and David Wulstan while the Jubilate Deo was published for the first time in 1997 in the Cathedral Press Series (CP 5).

Although the 'Eighth' Service is an a cappella setting, each canticle incorporates verse (solo) material for divided upper voices featuring close imitation typical of W eelkes. The T e Deum laudamus is the most extended movement, and so has several such verse sections as well as two for other vocal combinations. Musical cross-references, also characteristic of Weelkes, occur both between the movements of the Service as a whole and within each canticle. The head-motif recalls the opening of the composer's anthem All people, clap your hands while the tail-motif echoes the 'Amen' of his anthem O how amiable. Both works, like the Service, are scored for SAATB chorus and share its 'key'.

This edition marks the first appearance in print of the Te Deum laudamus from Weelkes' 'Eighth' Service.