Thomas Weelkes' First Service comprises seven movements. All that survives of four of the movements is an organ part, but there are also voice parts for the Te Deum (ATB, mainly chorus) as well as the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis.
In the Wimborne books the Te Deum is subtitled 'in vers for a meane' indicating extended solo writing for a boy's voice of normal, rather than high 'treble', range. The meane part-books no longer survive, but I discovered at Wimborne an 'organ' part which turns out to be a largely unsuccessful attempt by a late seventeenth-century musician to construct an organ score from the (then) complete set of part-books. The meane part therefore survives virtually complete, but wordless, so the two complementary organ parts make the reconstruction of the Te Deum a relatively straightforward matter. At the end of some of the chorus sections, a five-part texture is implied, as in the evening canticles, so at these points an additional alto part has been supplied editorially. This edition marks the first appearance of the Te Deum from Weelkes' First Service in print.
