There are a few pieces from the Renaissance and Baroque which can be called monumental, or epic, for involved comparatively huge numbers of forces. Today’s choice is one of those – a motet titled Spem in alium nunquam habui (‘I have never put my hope in any other’) for 40 voices, arranged in eight choirs of five voices each.
Other large works around that time include a now-lost 40-voice motet from 1564 by Lassus, Stefano Rossetto’s 50-voice motet Consolamini popule meus and Cristofano Malvezzi’s 30 O fortunato giorno.
As you look to the Baroque, you then see works such as Biber’s Missa Salisburgensis for 53 separate parts, Gabrieli’s 33-voice Magnificat, Landi’s Mass for 12 choirs, Valentini’s Mass for 17 choirs (!), Bernardi’s 16-choir works, as part of what is genuinely known as ‘Colossal Baroque’!
It would seem that Tallis was inspired by a work, possibly hearing it in 1567, by the contemporary Italian composer Alessandro Striggio (father of the librettist of Monterverdi’s Orfeo). Striggio wrote a mass setting for 40 voices (which concluded with an Agnus Dei for 60 voices now lost) called Missa sopra Ecco sì beato giorno, for his employer Cosimo I de’ Medici. This mass setting, like Tallis’s Spem in alium, is also for eight choirs of five voices each. Striggio also composed a 40-voice motet called Ecce beatam lucem
There are very few details about Spem in alium’s origin – here’s what we know, and what we can surmise:
1567 Striggio visits London arranging performances of his 40-voice mass.
1572 perhaps commissioned by the Duke of Norfolk (executed in 1572…) to be sung from the four galleries of the octagonal banqueting hall at Nonsuch Palace, which he’d bought from Mary 1 in 1556.
1573 a possible date for performance – Elizabeth I’s 40th birthday
1585 Thomas Tallis dies
1596 it is listed in a catalogue at Nonsuch Palace
1610 it is reworked in an English version for the investiture as Prince of Wales of Henry Frederick, the son of James I.
The motet is homophonic, occasionally imitative, and if you want to see the score, it’s in the TrinityLaban Greenwich site Jerwood Library – turn right at the desk, go all the way to the back wall, which is where they keep the Really Big Scores.
The first 34 bars have the music performed by Choir 1 Soprano, through Choir 1 Alto etc, across Choirs 2, 3, etc until reaching Choir 8 Bass, with the earlier choirs fading out so that there’s no more than 15 voices singing at a time.
At bar 40 (note the number) there is a Tutti, and from 45 the parts go back the other way.
At bar 69 a second Tutti, after which it’s antiphonal between groups of choirs – first 5 and 6 together, then 3 and 4, then 7 and 8, and 1 and 2.
From bar 96 there are larger groups – 3, 4, 5 and 6, then 5, 6, 7 and 8 and so forth, echoing and answering,
This stops at bar 108 for a third Tutti, but also an unrelated chord which grabs the ear – on the word ‘Respice’ – ‘regard’. This is followed by more antiphonal work, and a second ’Respice’ at bar 122, which lasts until the end of the piece.
The text is
Spem in alium nunquam habui
I have never put my hope in any other
Praeter in te, Deus Israel
but in Thee, God of Israel
Qui irasceris et propitius eris
who canst show both wrath and graciousness
et omnia peccata hominum
and who absolves all the sins
in tribulatione dimittis
of man in suffering
Domine Deus
Lord God
Creator caeli et terrae
Creator of Heaven and Earth
respice humilitatem nostrum
Regard our humility
The 1610 English version has this text:
Sing and glorify heaven’s high Majesty,
Author of this blessed harmony;
Sound divine praises
With melodious graces;
This is the day, holy day, happy day,
For ever give it greeting,
Love and joy heart and voice meeting:
Live Henry princely and mighty,
Harry live in thy creation happy.
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