Spem in Alium

 

I apologize for not blogging yesterday. Travalon sent me some sunset photos he took last night at Governor Nelson Park, and I could have posted those, but I am still on my sacred polyphony kick and was too busy finding pieces on YouTube. One that I listened to was "Spem in Alium" by Tallis. I have an interesting history with this piece.

When I was a young pup just out of college, the tenor in our church choir mentioned that Tallis had written a 40-part motet, and I said, "That sounds awful!" as I imagined people singing forty different notes at once. He said oh no, it's very beautiful. A few years later I was at a concert put on by a university choir from Germany, and "Spem in Alium" was their final piece. We were in a church, and they made a circle around the sanctuary and sang it. The way the song is actually structured is that there are eight five-part choirs, so part of the circle would sing, then another one would respond, then several choirs at once... and then suddenly, all eight choirs swelled into a wave of glorious sound! It was one of the most incredible experiences of my life.

A number of years later, we performed that song at the Early Music Festival. The giant choir there gets to do all sorts of interesting pieces like "Praeter Rerum Seriem" by Josquin de Prez (of course I listened to that last night too!), and the year we did "Spem in Alium," I was a first soprano in Choir Seven. It's not as much fun to perform as you might think, because you spend a lot of time not actually singing but just focusing on when your next entrance will be. I prefer the pieces where there are two choirs singing back and forth, like "Duo Seraphim" by Gallus, because you get to spend most of the time singing, and the entrances are more intuitive. Still, it was an amazing experience to be part of "Spem in Alium."

Forward another couple of years, and Light Bright was obsessed with the Fifty Shades of Gray books. She lent them to me, and in the first one the author describes a piece of music that sounded just like "Spem in Alium"... and it was! The books, if you are not familiar, are about kinky sex, so last night when I found "Spem in Alium" on YouTube, half the comments were things like, "I hope you're not here because of those trashy books!" I understand the piece was also in the soundtrack of the movie, which I didn't see. One guy, however, had a more expansive view (which I agree with), that anything that gets people to find this wonderful music is a net positive. Maybe people who read the book found the piece on YouTube and then went on to discover Tallis's protoge Byrd and the whole wonderful world of sacred polyphony. It could happen.

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