Spem in Alium
Sunday 16 June 2024, 3:30pm
Douai Abbey, near Reading
N.B please note the early start time
A British-Dutch choral collaboration featuring Thomas Tallis’ 40-part motet and music by Howells, Sweelinck, Panufnik, Bruckner and Obrecht.
Paragon Singers, in company with Dutch chamber choir Het Lelikoor from Amsterdam are looking forward to singing Spem in alium by Thomas Tallis. Also known as the 40-Part Motet, Tallis’s memorable piece is a landmark in the repertoire of Renaissance polyphony. Written for eight choirs of five voices, Tallis was inspired by his Italian counterpart Striggio, who had written a mass for 40 voices a few years before. It is believed that the two composers met in London and in the wake of this encounter the Duke of Norfolk challenged Tallis to write a work for similar forces.
The singers are typically ranged around a large church for maximum dramatic and vocal effect. A single voice in the first choir starts the piece – ‘I have never put my hope in any but in You, O God of Israel ’ – other voices are gradually added, creating waves of sound around the space, sometimes full-bodied and sumptuous, sometimes intimate. There is a spine-tingling punctuation point to listen for part way through the eight-minute piece when all forty voices sing together and then are momentarily silent before resuming.
As well as the monumental Spem, Paragon Singers will join Het Lelikoor to perform the Requiem Aeterna I movement from Herbert Howells’ Requiem, Love Endureth by the contemporary composer Roxanna Panufnik, and Miserere mei by the Dutch composer Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck. Lelikoor will bring us some Dutch and Flemish pieces, including Salve Regina by Jacob Obrecht.
Join us for a memorable concert of beautiful music.
