Salzburger Festspiele 2024 - Spem in alium (Sold out!)

Salzburger Festspiele 2024

Spem in alium

Vox Luminis XL, Artistic direction: Lionel Meunier

PROGRAM:
Thomas Tallis: Spem in alium
Thomas Tallis : The Lamentations of Jeremiah a 5
John Sheppard: Media vita
Alessandro Striggio: Ecce beatam lucem
Thomas Tallis: Spem in alium

Artistic director Lionel Meunier selected the iconic motet Media Vita of Sheppard, extremely moving music here flanked by two pieces written for 40 a capella voices. Writing for 40 voices implies a series of logistical and technical challenges. Tallis and Striggio probably met in London in 1567. Tallis’s monumental 40-voice work, Spem in alium, was probably inspired by the example of Striggio. Whereas Striggio’s composition Ecce Beatam lucem was probably designed for semicircular performance, Tallis had designed his music to be heard ‘in the round’, with the listener seated within the circle of performers. The music seems as such to ‘rotate’ around a circle.