Thomas Tallis: Spem in Alium

It is not often that I remove myself from my comfort zone of late 19th/mid 20th century music. A recent visit to St Alphege’s Church in Greenwich prompted me to revisit some of Thomas Tallis’s music. And what better way to begin by listening to his undoubted masterpiece, Spem in Alium, written for forty voices.

Tallis is believed to have played the organ at St Alfege’s Church in Greenwich on an ad hoc basis. However, there are no specific surviving records that provide exact dates for a formal appointment as "organist at St Alfege's Greenwich" in the same way he was at Waltham Abbey. His connection to this place of worship was tied to his residence in the area. He was buried in the church in 1585.

Thomas Tallis was born around 1505 and is considered one of the great founding figures of English church music. He served as organist at Waltham Abbey until its dissolution in 1540.

His most important post from around 1542/3 until his death in 1585 was as a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal, a position he held under four monarchs: Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary I, and Elizabeth I. Alongside William Byrd, he functioned as organist to the Chapel Royal, which was often based at the nearby Greenwich Palace.

In 1575, Tallis and Byrd were granted a royal patent giving them exclusive rights to print music and to sell ruled music paper for 21 years - a remarkable privilege in Tudor England. That same year, they published Cantiones, quae ab argumento sacrae vocantur, a collection of 34 Latin motets (16 by Tallis, eighteen by Byrd).

Tallis's liturgical output was considerable. He composed settings of the daily services - psalms, canticles, and responses - many of which were later reprinted in collections such as Barnard’s First Book of Selected Church Music (1641), Boyce’s Cathedral Music, and the histories of Hawkins and Burney. His shorter service settings (including the Venite, Te Deum, Benedictus, Kyrie, Credo, Sanctus, Gloria, Magnificat, and Nunc Dimittis) became staples of Anglican worship.

His music continued to circulate long after his death. John Day’s Certaine Notes (1560–65) included five of his anthems, while later editors such as Edward F. Rimbault, Novello & Co., and Richard Terry ensured his works remained accessible. In the 20th century, his complete church music was gathered into Tudor Church Music, Volume VI (1928).

Tallis’s most celebrated work is Spem in alium, a monumental motet for forty independent voices arranged into eight choirs of five parts each. It was composed around 1570. This extraordinary work was published in the first reliable printed edition by A. H. Mann in 1888. It remains one of the marvels of Renaissance polyphony. 

The work is cunningly structured for eight choirs of five voices each (soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, and bass). Tallis manipulates these massive forces, creating a continuously shifting soundscape. The music begins with a single voice, gradually adding others in imitation, moving in a "wave" around the choirs, before culminating in moments where all forty voices sing together in a glorious "wall of sound."

Listen to Spem in alium sung by The Tallis Scholars, on YouTube, here.