Spem in Alium

Despite its text, Tallis’ famous 40-voice motet Spem in alium is not a sacred work. It was actually written in answer to a challenge—to prove that English composers were just as good as Italians, if not better. In 1567, Alessandro Striggio visited England with an ambitious mass and motet for 40 singers. The Duke of Norfolk wondered “whether none of our Englishmen could set as good a song”. Tallis either volunteered or was commissioned to write a similar 40-part work and Spem in alium was apparently performed around 1571 in the long gallery at Arundel House (no longer standing, but near present-day Somerset House in central London). Achieving a glorious balance between vast chordal declamation and complex interweaving of voices (polyphony), Tallis exploited every possible combination of effects from the 40 voices to create perhaps the most ambitious vocal work of the Renaissance. While Striggio divided his 40 singers into five eight-part choirs, Tallis got more antiphonal drama from four choirs of 10 voices; and whereas Striggio avoided both serious counterpoint and expressive harmony, Tallis revelled in both. The Duke of Norfolk eventually presented Tallis—the “winner”—with a chain of gold. The work was revived in 1610 for the investiture of James I’s son, Henry, as Prince of Wales, and was provided with a new, celebratory text—“Sing and Glorify”.