Spem in alium

[Rolmill]

I thought some members (e.g. non-experts like me!) might enjoy this introduction to this remarkable work (by Jaakko Mantyjarvi): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gv1z...kGtNqgjVAY5lDw

I found it a fascinating and entertaining presentation. It ends with a full performance by Stilo Antico - a little too much vibrato involved for my taste, but accompanied by an excellent graphical representation of the 40 parts.

[ardcarp]

Thanks so much for posting up this interesting and at times amusing introduction to and analysis of this piece.
I was aware that there was a secular version of the motet, but couldn't remember which came first.

The final performance in the link above, where a diagram of the voices/choirs lights up, is especially instructive for those who have not heard Spem in live performance or who have not sung in it. Unless you have 8 speakers each dedicated to a separate choir it is impossible to appreciate it fully via a CD. (No doubt someone will correct me if technology has moved on!) My only slight problem with Stilo Antico's performance is that it's a bit fast. (Sorry, Stile!) At a slightly slower pace and in a massive building, those 'silences' which Jaakko mentions are even more stunning.

What was not mentioned in connection with Tallis's compositional process is that he clearly had an idea of the 'harmony' of each bar. The imitative entries are often designed to fit the harmony and so avoid too many suspensions (i.e. dissonance followed by resolution) which are easier to achieve with much smaller forces. In fact the modern OUP edition which Jaakko held up (thus hiding his face) has a figured bass page, an idea not around in Tallis's time, but which enables an organist to 'play along'. This shows some 4-3 suspensions, but they mainly occur when fewer voices are singing at any one time. So much of Spem has unadulterated chords with some passing notes, and of course the inevitable English cadence much beloved of Tallis. BTW, Spem used, in days gone by, to be performed with organ to avoid it going out of tune. Nowadays, any self-respecting ensemble would shudder at the thought.

A word about part-books. Jaakko suggested that all the trebles might have had just the 8 treble parts. Quite a common practice (one I've encountered) is for the modern OUP editions to be cut ii half, so the bottom 4 choirs just have their music and the top four theirs. That's also pretty scary, even if it does save a bob or two. The downside of wielding the full 40-part copy is that one needs to hold it well down to avoid obscuring your view of the conductor. In a vast building of cathedral proportions with the choirs very well spread out, a good view of a conductor maintaining a straightforward 4-in-a-bar beat (and no nonsense) is pretty vital. This applies especially, as is so often the case, when extra singers are recruited to make up the numbers, and may only have a short run-through before the performance. Often, this special gathering of singers prompts a second performance of the piece within the same concert!

Again, thanks Rolmill, and apologies if I've rambled on somewhat.

[DracoM]

Yes. What puzzles me is how, back when, boy choristers with small hands could possibly have held any kind of MS to sing from? Or would it be just 'their' choir MS?
A nightmare for ANY chorister to handle?

[Joseph K]

Or would it be just 'their' choir MS?

From what I recall from my Early Music studies, it was actually more common for at least a first few hundred years of notated music for pieces to only comprise of their parts. Someone might correct me on this...

[french frank]

I found it a fascinating and entertaining presentation. It ends with a full performance by Stilo Antico - a little too much vibrato involved for my taste, but accompanied by an excellent graphical representation of the 40 parts.

Me too. The 'light display' at the end was indeed illuminating! Curious mix of styles in the presentation (how did he keep a straight face at times?), a good, straight Third Programme talk with whacky interventions.

[Ein Heldenleben]

From what I recall from my Early Music studies, it was actually more common for at least a first few hundred years of notated music for pieces to only comprise of their parts. Someone might correct me on this...

Just been reading Penguin guide to Classical music: Renaissance to Baroque and you’re right - because of the time and expense. Where there are multi part scores it has apparently enabled scholars to estimate the performance group size

[Pulcinella]

Yes. What puzzles me is how, back when, boy choristers with small hands could possibly have held any kind of MS to sing from? Or would it be just 'their' choir MS?
A nightmare for ANY chorister to handle?

I'm pretty sure that I've seen drawings/paintings/woodcuts of groups of singers (often monks) clustered round what looks like a multi-sided lectern, presumably with one part propped up on each side, so nothing really held or handled.
How anyone got close enough and was able to read the music, especially in dim conditions, raises another host of performance issues.

[Miles Coverdale]

Yes. What puzzles me is how, back when, boy choristers with small hands could possibly have held any kind of MS to sing from? Or would it be just 'their' choir MS?
A nightmare for ANY chorister to handle?

When the MS was a large choirbook like Eton, they either performed largely from memory or the individual parts were copied out onto separate pieces of paper. Given the temporary nature of such smaller manuscripts, it's not surprising that very few have survived, though some have, the bass part from Browne's Stabat mater being one example.

[Miles Coverdale]

I'm pretty sure that I've seen drawings/paintings/woodcuts of groups of singers (often monks) clustered round what looks like a multi-sided lectern, presumably with one part propped up on each side, so nothing really held or handled.
How anyone got close enough to read the music, especially in dim conditions, raises another host of performance issues.

In the case of monastic choirs, the books would only have contained monophonic music and would very probably have been different, say a Gradual and a Missal, so that when they needed to go from one book to the other, the lectern would have been rotated so that the relevant book faced the singers.

One shouldn't forget how much material was sung from memory in the medieval period, when manuscripts were very time-consuming and expensive to produce. For example, in the days when they sang only plainsong and not polyphony, choristers were often expected to commit the entire psalter to memory.

[Pulcinella]

In the case of monastic choirs, the books would only have contained monophonic music and would very probably have been different, say a Gradual and a Missal, so that when they needed to go from one book to the other, the lectern would have been rotated so that the relevant book faced the singers.

One shouldn't forget how much material was sung from memory in the medieval period, when manuscripts were very time-consuming and expensive to produce. For example, in the days when they sang only plainsong and not polyphony, choristers were often expected to commit the entire psalter to memory.

That makes sense.
Thanks for the explanation.

[DracoM]

<< One shouldn't forget how much material was sung from memory in the medieval period, when manuscripts were very time-consuming and expensive to produce. For example, in the days when they sang only plainsong and not polyphony, choristers were often expected to commit the entire psalter to memory.>>


Yes, of course, many will have, and I've sung since year dot in my own life from memory esp plainchant etc, BUT, FGS, 'Spem in Alium'....? Logistically it has to be a far bigger proposition.

Did the separate choirs within it have ONLY their own parts, and in front of them also a VERY clued up director to help them in, or did they nod each other in, or were they just very expert at counting or....................

...well, so, how did they?

[Miles Coverdale]

I think the most likely scenario is that each singer had his own part. When Tallis wrote Spem, choral music was most commonly copied in partbooks. I rather doubt there was a conductor with a score to bring people in. I suspect that they were just very good at counting: professional musicians of that day had to be. They must also have had good relative pitch, as they would often have had to sing or learn from notation that bore little relation to the pitch at which they were singing. Choral singers today tend to be quite attached to singing from a complete score and at a fairly fixed pitch standard, but things must have been very different for their Renaissance counterparts.

[Vox Humana]

In the case of monastic choirs, the books would only have contained monophonic music and would very probably have been different, say a Gradual and a Missal, so that when they needed to go from one book to the other, the lectern would have been rotated so that the relevant book faced the singers.

If I may split a hair, the missal was a book for the priest at the altar, the gradual a book for the choir. There was no question of them ever needing to share a lectern. That was a whole point of having the two different books. I'm actually struggling to think of a case offhand when a revolving lectern would be required. Opposing shelves at different heights could conceivably have catered for the differing heights of boy and adult soloists—or of a seated organist—though it's strange that choirbooks always have the boys parts at the top.

Thomas Morley's famous Introduction to Practical Music leaves no doubt that Tudor singers and players were expected to have absolutely rock solid rhythm in order to cope with the most complex of 'tuplets'. I have little doubt that, at the first performance of Spem, the singers would have had rolls of paper (or vellum) with just their own part. Scribes had a couple of ways of easing the burden of counting long rests. The most regular way was to mark the cadence before your entry with a pair of dots on the staff (like modern repeat dots), so that you just listened for the cadence and only started counting the rests from the dots. The other, used where a voice had to enter without any guiding cadence, was to add a signum imitationis (aka signum congruentiae) in one of the other parts that was already singing over or under the note that coincided with the entry of the new voice. This instructed the first singer to signal the entry to the new singer. I suspect that the original parts of Spem might have had rather a lot of these.

[ardcarp]

I'm pretty sure that I've seen drawings/paintings/woodcuts of groups of singers (often monks) clustered round what looks like a multi-sided lectern, presumably with one part propped up on each side, so nothing really held or handled.

Yes, both part books and/or the multi-sided lectern are the most likely means of choristers reading music in those days.. I've mentioned this before, but I was privileged to see the actual Eton Choir Book being sung from by music scholars in Eton College Chapel. (Amazingly, Eton still possesses this most treasured m/s.) And the singers were grouped around it. Whether they were cheating (i.e. having modern copies cunningly concealed) I wasn't close enough to see. But it is a treasured memory.

This may be of interest: https://www.chch.ox.ac.uk/tudor-part...sic-collection

I believe that in some part books, each part was set at a different angle on the double-page spread to make it easier for 360 degree singing. I'm a bit rusty on all this, so maybe a scholar will ride to my rescue.

Anyone really interested may like: file:///C:/Users/CARPEN~1/AppData/Local/Temp/WilliamsonChaps.pdf

(NB In case anyone is confused, Spen in Alium has nothing to do with The Eton Choirbook.)

[Vox Humana]

I believe that in some part books, each part was set at a different angle on the double-page spread to make it easier for 360 degree singing.

Indeed so. The correct term is table book, because they had to be laid on a table (presumably a small, square one) for the singers or players seated around it to read. Here's one from the last quarter of the sixteenth century and here's Dowland's First Book of Airs laid out in the same fashion. (You get a better idea of both these books if you click the 'two pages' icon in the top right of the black area.)