Spem in alium & other sacred music

Tallis: Spem in alium & other sacred music
(Released: 28/10/2016)
Hyperion CDA68156

Tallis: Spem in alium other sacred music
(Tallis: Spem in alium & other sacred music)

The Cardinall’s Musick’s thrilling exploration of Tallis’ sacred music comes to a glorious close with both versions of the great forty-part motet: Spem in alium itself and Sing and glorify, the less familiar English-texted contrafactum.

“The pinnacles of this glorious disc are Thomas Tallis’s vast canvas – 40 independent voices – of Spem in alium, and a later version to an English text, Sing and glorify. […] Carwood moulds the structures to great effect, with wide-ranging dynamics from hushed groupings of eight voices to the full force. The remainder of the disc consists largely of Evensong from The Short Service, and includes the sublimely simple Tallis’s Canon, all beautifully crafted, and serving as a contract in scale and mood to the two versions of Tallis’s masterpiece”
BBC Music Magazine, December 2016 – George Pratt *****