Festival Voices: Spem In Alium

Tallis’s monumental 40-part motet is performed by the Festival Voices, a collective of singers from choirs across the island. This masterpiece of Renaissance polyphony uses eight five-voice choirs spaced around the church, enveloping the audience in transcendent antiphony. The genius of Tallis’ work, which is standalone in both it’s grandeur and expressive depth, is that he balances the full-voiced radiance of the massed choir with the melodic intricacy of individual lines, which cut through the texture like shards of light. Composed in c.1570 during the reign of Elizabeth I, it is a humble plea for divine mercy, with text taken from the apocryphal book of Judith: I have never put my hope in any other but you, O God of Israel.

Alongside Tallis’s masterwork, the echoing chorale of Tavener’s “Hymn to the Mother of God” shifts in and out of focus as the ear is drawn to difference voices around the space. There are moments of uncertainty