Spem in allium

Even though the Tate Modern is huge and this still makes me nervous, there is nothing like Renaissance choral music sometimes! 

There’s no piece of music like Thomas Tallis’ Spem in alium. It’s one of the most iconic works for the human voice, featuring the choir of 40 independent singers and interweaving lines of music. Written 450 years ago in 1570, it’s a masterpiece of composition. Writing for 40 different voices requires elaborate musical architecture. Often the voices join one by one and sing in different combinations, but several times in the 10-minute piece, all 40 voices enter at the same time. The sound is majestic and overwhelming.

It’s a piece that’s often sung in big, distinctive acoustics like cathedrals or cavernous basilicas. In May 2020, the leading British choir ORA Singers and their founder and director Suzi Digby planned to sing it somewhere quite different: one of London’s most strikingly modern spaces.

The Tate Modern on the banks of the Thames is one of the world’s most iconic galleries, with huge austere rooms situated in a massive Victorian former power station. The performance was to take place in the building’s Turbine Hall, to coincide with Tate Modern’s 20th birthday.

via {classic fm}