More on Striggio

We first posted about the Striggio work here and now we get more details via the blog "On An Overgrown Path."

From their post:

Alessandro Striggio worked in Florence and Mantua in the 1550s, and developed a luxurious and opulent style of choral writing that culminated in a Sanctus for sixty voices that has sadly been lost over the intervening centuries. The motet Ecce beatam lucem was composed in 1561 as a celebration of Catholicism. It was written to mark the visit of Cardinal Ippolito d’Este to France where he was preaching against Protestantism, and uses forty voices organised in varying groupings through the course of the work.

In 1567 Striggio travelled to London where Ecco beatam lucem was received rapturously. It is thought that a request by Thomas Howard fourth Duke of Norfolk prompted Thomas Tallis to start composing Spem in alium in 1567 as a response to the popularity of Striggio’s motet. There are some striking similarities. They both use the same forces, share the key of G, and exploit the spine-chilling impact of forty-voice polyphony. Tallis however raised the game, Spem is more overtly sacred, and the technical writing and development is more accomplished.