“Spem in alium”
The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips
Cadogan Hall, 20 June 2023

Sheppard: Media vita
White: Regina caeli; Domine quis habitabit III
Byrd: Ad Dominum cum tribularer
Taverner: Magnificat a 6
Tallis: Spem in alium

The last time I reviewed The Tallis Scholars at the Cadogan Hall was in June 2022 when they presented a programme with the title of Spem in alium. They have now returned to Cadogan Hall for a two-night sell-out concert with the title of … er … Spem in alium! In contrast to last year’s all-Tallis programme, this time said Spem in alium concluded a concert of large-scale English vocal pieces from Tallis’s time by Sheppard, White, Tavener and Byrd, whose 400th anniversary is this year.

They opened with John Sheppard’s monumental Media vita (In the midst of life we are in death). An extraordinary piece, lasting around 20 minutes, in both scale and musical texture, it sets the antiphon to the Nunc Dimittis, the central focus of Compline services for the principal feast days leading up to Passion Sunday. Sheppard’s extravagant six-part polyphony encloses the chanted Nunc Dimittis. The verse and respond structure of the antiphon setting uses a range of vocal structures, starting with a slow increase from a low voice start. Each section is followed by the response Sancte Deus. Sancte fortis. Sancte et misericors Salvator. The very slow tactus pulse and the gradually evolving polyphonic threads made for a wonderful example of musical mindfulness It would be fascinating to learn for what occasion this was composed, presumably at Sheppard’s Magdelene College, Oxford.

The tighter polyphonic structure of the short antiphon Regina caeli by Robert White, organist at Westminster Abbey, acted as a palette-cleanser before his extended motet on Psalm 15, Domine quis habitabit III. Here the interest was in the movement of short motifs in imitative polyphony around the voices, which are scored as three pairs of voices.

William Byrd was rather later in birth and death than the other composers, although his eight=part Ad Dominum cum tribularer, an early work dating from the 1560s, was in the same polyphonic vein. Possibly composed during his time as organist in Lincoln Cathedral, it is a bold statement of a young composer’s ambition. The cadence at the end of the first section was particularly impressive, the 16 singers of the core Tallis Scholars being the largest on-stage presence before their guest singers joined them for the concluding Spem.

That was preceded by Taverner’s Magnificat a 6, probably composed for his Cardinal College, Oxford (now Christ Church). Taverner died when Byrd was just 5, and the alternatim structure reflected the style of that earlier period, along with the contrasting vocal textures of the polyphonic sections. Along with a number of other pieces in the programme, the loss of one of the part books means that one of the parts had to be reconstructed. The conclusion was spectacular, the lively and florid lines of the upper voice trio of the Sicut erat followed by an almost flighty Amen.

The ritual arrival of an unfeasibly large music stand heralded the 40 singers for Spem in alium, spreading themselves in two closely-spaced rows across the stage. This was a powerful performance that used the full range of volumes. In this, as throughout the evening, I was particularly impressed with the upper voices, whose clarity of tone and impeccable balance with their lower-pitched colleagues made for an outstanding consort sound. Peter Phillips conducting has become far more relaxed and fluid in recent times, his earlier jerky hand movements seeming, to me at least, to be out of keeping with the style of his preferred music and rather distracting.