Spem in alium

T. Tallis

Key

G

Time

C

Tempo

♩=60

AO focus

AO3

Form

Motet for FORTY independent voices (eight choirs of five). Possibly written for Queen Elizabeth I's 40th birthday. The single most-elaborate piece of Renaissance polyphony — voices enter one at a time across the eight choirs, building to all 40 singing simultaneously at the climax.

Teaching points

• Forty voices, eight choirs — discuss seating and acoustic placement
• Solo entries → tutti — the piece begins with single voices and gradually expands. Modern recordings make this audible; live performance overwhelms listeners with sheer scale
• AO3: this is the one Renaissance piece students should hear once in their life. Why? Because nothing else like it exists in Western polyphony