Spem in alium (Thomas Tallis)
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Full score (all 8 SATBB choirs)
- CPDL #8558:
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- Editor: Philip Legge (added 2004-11-28). Score information: A4, 25 pages, 632 kbytes Copyright: CPDL
- Edition notes: A4 format, but should be printed or enlarged to A3 format. Complete score, individual parts also available below.
Individual Voice parts with thoroughbass
- Editor: Philip Legge (added 2004-11-28). Score information: A4 size Copyright: CPDL
- 8 Soprano parts: CPDL #8553: .
- Score information: A4, 25 pages, 204 kbytes Copyright: CPDL
- 8 Alto parts: CPDL #8554: .
- Score information: A4, 25 pages, 216 kbytes Copyright: CPDL
- 8 Tenor parts: CPDL #8555: .
- Score information: A4, 25 pages, 208 kbytes Copyright: CPDL
- 8 Baritone parts: CPDL #8556: .
- Score information: A4, 25 pages, 204 kbytes Copyright: CPDL
- 8 Bass parts: CPDL #8557: .
- Score information: A4, 25 pages, 172 kbytes Copyright: CPDL
Individual Chorus parts with other chorus parts in reduction
- Editor: David K. Means (added 2000-07-19). Score information: Letter size Copyright: CPDL
- Edition notes: Individual chorus parts, with the other 7 choral parts in reduction.
- Chorus 1 parts: CPDL #1151: .
- Score information: Letter, 396 kbytes Copyright: CPDL
- Chorus 2 parts: CPDL #1152: .
- Score information: Letter, 400 kbytes Copyright: CPDL
- Chorus 3 parts: CPDL #1153: .
- Score information: Letter, 400 kbytes Copyright: CPDL
- Chorus 4 parts: CPDL #1154: .
- Score information: Letter, 400 kbytes Copyright: CPDL
- Chorus 5 parts: CPDL #1155: .
- Score information: Letter, 400 kbytes Copyright: CPDL
- Chorus 6 parts: CPDL #1156: .
- Score information: Letter, 400 kbytes Copyright: CPDL
- Chorus 7 parts: CPDL #1157: .
- Score information: Letter, 396 kbytes Copyright: CPDL
- Chorus 8 parts: CPDL #1158: .
- Score information: Letter, 392 kbytes Copyright: CPDL
General Information
Title: Spem in alium nunquam habui (complete)
Composer: Thomas Tallis
Number of voices: 40vv Voicing: SATBB x 8
Genre: Sacred, Motets
Language: Latin
Instruments: none, a cappella
Published:
Description:
External websites:
Original text and translations
Source
The source for the text of Tallis' motet is a respond in the Sarum liturgy. It is derived from Judith 8.19 and 6.19. (The Book of Judith is included in the Septuagint, which was translated into Greek for the use of Hellenized Jews in Alexandria. The book is included in the Roman Catholic Old Testament, but relegated to the apocrypha by Protestants).
Latin text
Spem in alium nunquam habui praeter in te, Deus Israel,
qui irasceris et propitius eris,
et omnia peccata hominum in tribulatione dimittis.
Domine Deus, creator coeli et terrae
respice humilitatem nostram.
English translation
I have never put my hope in any other but in you, God of Israel,
who will be angry and yet become again gracious,
and who forgives all the sins of suffering man.
Lord God, creator of heaven and earth,
look upon our lowliness.
Dutch translation
Mijn hoop is slechts op U gesteld, God van Israel,
die toornig is en toch genade toont
en de zonden vergeeft van mensen die lijden.
Heer God, schepper van hemel en aarde,
zie om naar ons in onze nederigheid.
Additional notes
(The following is from the prefatory notes to the CPDL edition by Philip Legge (ID 8558).)
Forty–part motets from the sixteenth century are an exceedingly rare species. In July 1561 Cardinal Ippolito d’Este was ceremonially welcomed to Florence, probably the occasion for which the composer and diplomat Alessandro Striggio (senior) composed a 40–part motet, Ecce beatam lucem, which was first performed beneath the vast cupola of Santa Maria della Fiore, with the singers probably arrayed in a semi-circle. Striggio visited London on diplomatic business in the summer of 1567, bringing with him the Latin motet; Striggio had taken a similarly vast mass (also reputed to be in 40 parts, with a 60–voice Agnus Dei; now lost) around Europe, but which would have been inappropriate to perform in Protestant England.
It seems very likely that Striggio performed the motet in London, and that he and Thomas Tallis met. In 1981 Jerome Roche re-discovered a 1611 account by one Thomas Wateridge, a law student at the Temple. According to his account, after hearing the 40–part motet a nobleman:
asked whether none of our Englishmen could sett as good a songe [...] Tallice beinge very skilfull was felt to try whether he would undertake ye Matter, wch he did and made one of 40 partes wch was songe in the longe gallery at Arundell house. Arundel House was the London home of Henry Fitzalan, the 12th Earl of Arundel. However his country residence, Nonsuch Palace, possessed an octagonal banqueting hall, and a catalogue of music in the library at Nonsuch, drawn up in 1596, reveals the existence of a score of Spem in alium. In addition to its octagonal layout the banqueting hall had four first-floor balconies, so that it is possible Tallis designed for the music to be sung not only in the round, but with four of the eight choirs singing from the balconies.
Musically, the motet is a tour de force on many levels, not least for Tallis’ masterful exploitation of his choirs’ spatial distribution. If the choirs are arranged in circular fashion sequentially by number, then the music “rotates” through the opening points of imitation on Spem in alium nunquam habui (choirs I to IV) and Præter in te, Deus Israel (choirs V to VIII). After a short interjection from choirs III and IV (which functions antiphonally as "decani" to the "cantoris" of choirs VII and VIII) Tallis completes the circle with the entry of the final bass voice of Choir VIII; shortly afterwards, at the fourtieth breve of the work, all forty voices enter in the first of a series of massive welters of sound, which has been described as "polyphonic detailism". The next imitative section which follows at qui irasceris et propitius eris reverses the direction of rotation as new voices enter against varied countersubjects in the parts already established.
Tallis also manages to combine the exchanges between choirs in four different antiphonal arrangements, by amalgamating the singers in four groups of two choirs (as hinted at above), so antiphony can pass back between both "north" and "south", but also between "east" and "west"), but also as two groups of four choirs (i.e. one massive 20–voice choir against another) which can be arranged in two different ways (north and west versus east and south, or north and east versus south and west).
After the most intricate chordal passage so disposed between the various choirs, Tallis contrives the entire choir of 40 voices to enter as one after a pause, "upon a magical change of harmony". With the words respice humilitatem nostram Tallis ends with the most strikingly unhumble polyphonic passage yet heard, framed by the strong harmonic rhythms of the ensemble. The view that this might be Tallis' opus magnum is intriguingly suggested by Hugh Keyte's observation of a possible numerological significance in the work's duration being exactly 69 long notes: in the Latin alphabet, TALLIS adds up to 69.