Tallis Scholars Unveil Striggio Woork

From Martin Kettle, of The Guardian
Thursday July 19, 2007


Thomas Tallis may have written his revered 40-part Spem in alium motet after meeting the Mantuan composer Alessandro Striggio in London in 1567. Perhaps Tallis even took as a model Striggio's own 40-part mass Ecco si beato giorno, which in its final Agnus Dei rises to 60 parts.

For centuries, the missing link in this theory was Striggio's lost mass itself; its rediscovery is an astonishing moment in musicological history. Unveiled in this late-night Prom by the augmented Tallis Scholars, possibly for the first time in half a millennium, Striggio's work is a masterpiece; richer and more extravagant than Tallis's more austerely English motet, but more than fit to be mentioned in the same breath as twin landmarks of 16th-century polyphony.

To hear Peter Phillips direct the Tallis, followed by Davitt Moroney's compelling rendition of the Striggio, was to be present not just at the choral event of the year but possibly of the decade.

Thanks to John Neal, for pointing out this article!

More here.