{"id":594,"date":"2007-08-02T01:42:45","date_gmt":"2007-08-02T05:42:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/s265039441.onlinehome.us\/philpaine\/?p=594"},"modified":"2018-08-16T21:15:07","modified_gmt":"2018-08-17T01:15:07","slug":"utopia-triumphans-and-tallis%e2%80%99-spem-in-alium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=594","title":{"rendered":"Utopia Triumphans and Tallis\u2019 Spem In Alium"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"07-08-02<\/a>The Huel\u00adgas Ensem\u00adble, under the direc\u00adtion of Paul Van Nev\u00adel, put togeth\u00ader a col\u00adlec\u00adtion of Renais\u00adsance poly\u00adphonic works for large choirs, which they called \u201cUtopia Tri\u00adumphans\u201d. In fact, these works are for huge<\/em> choirs. It starts with Thomas Tallis\u2019 aston\u00adish\u00ading 40-part motet Spem in ali\u00adum<\/em>, and ends with Alessan\u00addro Striggio\u2019s 40-part Ecce beat\u00adam lucem<\/em>. Striggio\u2019s piece was per\u00adformed in Eng\u00adland in 1567, and caused such a stir that it was tak\u00aden as a chal\u00adlenge. It is said that Tallis was com\u00admis\u00adsioned to com\u00adpose an \u201canswer\u201d, and Spem in ali\u00adum<\/em> was the result (how\u00adever some author\u00adi\u00adties doubt this story).<\/span><\/p>\n

Motets on this scale are very dif\u00adfi\u00adcult to mount. The man\u00adu\u00adscript kicked around for cen\u00adturies, but no doubt those who looked at it shrugged their shoul\u00adders. Inter\u00adest\u00ading, but too much work to put on, and Tallis had lit\u00adtle sell\u00ading pow\u00ader. His rep\u00adu\u00adta\u00adtion was eclipsed by his pupil William Byrd, and if Ralph Vaugh\u00adan Williams had not com\u00adposed his Fan\u00adta\u00adsia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis<\/em>, few would have heard his name. But in 1965, the choir of King\u2019s Col\u00adlege Cam\u00adbridge took a chance, and record\u00aded it. Sub\u00adse\u00adquently, there was a revival of inter\u00adest in Tallis, and today I noticed a site list\u00ading it among the \u201ctop 10 essen\u00adtial choral pieces\u201d. There have been many record\u00adings of it, the most well known being that of the Tallis Schol\u00adars. Per\u00adhaps the most amaz\u00ading trib\u00adute to the work is in the Nation\u00adal Gallery of Cana\u00adda, in Ottawa. Here, Maya 3D<\/span> mod\u00adel\u00ading soft\u00adware, laser scan\u00adning and pho\u00adtogram\u00adme\u00adtry were used to accu\u00adrately recre\u00adate the inte\u00adrior of a beau\u00adti\u00adful con\u00advent chapel which, unfor\u00adtu\u00adnately, had to be demol\u00adished. With\u00adin this mod\u00adel (where even the \u201csun\u00adlight\u201d in the stained glass is arti\u00adfi\u00adcial), forty speak\u00aders set around the chapel each play the sound of a sin\u00adgle voice of the forty-part choir, allow\u00ading for an espe\u00adcially intense, and vari\u00adable expe\u00adri\u00adence of the piece.<\/span><\/p>\n

And the piece is amply worth such scruti\u00adny. Begin\u00adning sim\u00adply, and build\u00ading up a kind of Grand Cen\u00adtral Sta\u00adtion of mur\u00admur\u00ading voic\u00ades, atop which floats a sopra\u00adno line of haunt\u00ading beau\u00adty, the motet final\u00adly bursts forth in a dra\u00admatic tut\u00adti<\/em> on the for\u00adti\u00adeth bar. This is not just a motet made large by bloat\u00ading. Each part is nec\u00ades\u00adsary to make this com\u00adplex piece work.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was the first Kings Col\u00adlege Cam\u00adbridge record\u00ading that over\u00adwhelmed me, when I came across it in a cut-out bin, when I first began seri\u00adously lis\u00adten\u00ading to music. Since then, I\u2019ve heard sev\u00aderal record\u00adings, includ\u00ading a sec\u00adond one by Kings, and one live per\u00adfor\u00admance in Toronto\u2019s Angli\u00adcan cathe\u00addral. I have to say that there was some\u00adthing spe\u00adcial and mag\u00adi\u00adcal about that first record\u00ading. KCC<\/span> made no attempt to hide, by under\u00adem\u00adpha\u00adsis, the Renais\u00adsance fea\u00adtures that would now be inter\u00adpreted as dis\u00adso\u00adnant. And in 1965, the choir pos\u00adsessed a boy sopra\u00adno whose voice was down\u00adright super\u00adnat\u00adural. Record\u00adings sub\u00adsti\u00adtut\u00ading a female sopra\u00adno do not do the job. Unfor\u00adtu\u00adnately, the record\u00ading I love has not been made into a cd, as far as I know.<\/span><\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t care for the ver\u00adsion record\u00aded by Huel\u00adgas Ensem\u00adble, but the oth\u00ader pieces in their col\u00adlec\u00adtion, by Con\u00adstanzo Por\u00adta, Josquin desPrez, Johannes Ock\u00adegham, Pierre de Manchicourt,and Gio\u00advanni Gabrieli, are all beau\u00adti\u00adful. Most of them can\u2019t be found else\u00adwhere. They\u2019re all unusu\u00adally large-scale pieces, with the excep\u00adtion of Manchicourt\u2019s six-voice Lau\u00addate Dominum<\/em>, which is includ\u00aded to pro\u00advide a brief relief from the grandeur. Striggio\u2019s \u201cchal\u00adlenge\u201d is very grand indeed, but it\u2019s not as haunt\u00ading or sub\u00adtle as Tallis\u2019 \u201canswer\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Huel\u00adgas Ensem\u00adble, under the direc\u00adtion of Paul Van Nev\u00adel, put togeth\u00ader a col\u00adlec\u00adtion of Renais\u00adsance poly\u00adphonic works for large choirs, which they called \u201cUtopia Tri\u00adumphans\u201d. In fact, these works are for huge choirs. It starts with Thomas Tallis\u2019 astonishing \u2026<\/p>\n

Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[947,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-c-listening","category-ct-listening-2007"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=594"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8972,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/594\/revisions\/8972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}