Tallis, Spem in alium © (40-voice motet)

Spem in alium, by Thomas Tallis, performed by the Taverner Choir, accompanied by an animated graphical score.
FAQ

Q: What's the best way to watch this video?
A: This video was designed to look best with Chromadepth 3D glasses. You can learn more about these glasses here:
Other videos I've made using Chromadepth 3D are posted on this channel:
To get the best effect, play the video in full-screen mode and stand back from it.

Q: Where can I learn more about this piece?
A: Here:

Q: Are there alternate versions of this video?
A: Yes; here's the original (Chromadepth 3D) ...
... here's a Voronoi tessellation version ...
... and here's a version that shows the motion of the individual voices ...

Q: I appreciate the animated graphical scores you make; how can I help?
A: There are many ways you can support my work:
free: watch my videos, like them, and share them with friends

Q: What do the colors and shapes mean?
A: The 40 voices in this piece are divided into eight choirs of five voices each. In this video, the notes for each choir have a different color, a different size, and a different depth, with the first choir being small, red and in front, and the eighth choir being large, blue, and in back.

Q: Could you please do a video of _______?
A: Please read this:

[SFox]

I suffer from really bad Anxiety and panic attacks...this calms me down every time.

[vedranabistricic]

I sang this 4 years ago with my choir on academy. It was such an honour. I will cherish that memory forever. That rich sound that was send was like swimming in a water of sound. That our Tallis for this piece

[JohnGTynan]

When he was composing this he had no playback to hear how 40 voices blended Everything was in his head. Remarkable.
My wife sang it at Cambridge. She confirmed that it is a very difficult piece.

[charlesshoultz]

What a genius Tallis must have been, to conceive of all of this almost totally in his head.

A level of genius comparable to Beethoven composing while deaf.

[MrUnidyne]

Imagine hearing this in a cathedral. You would have thought the Gates of Heaven had opened.

[kenb]

Liam, this piece, just as all great art, is timeless. Some years ago, the San Francisco Bach Choir performed this piece. The SFBC has a choir of over 80 voices, so each of the voices was doubled. The choir completely encircled the people in the church. The director believed that this is how it was originally meant to be heard.
At the beginning, as you can hear, that lone voice begins the piece, then joined by one other, and then the eight choirs of 5 voices each (in SFBC''s case eight choirs of 10 voices each) join in different combinations and permutations. But there is one extraordinary aspect you don't get when the choir members are all situated in the front. The choirs encircling us literally created a vortex of sound. The sound would begin to slowly circle in one direction then slowly begin to swirl in the other direction. At those wonderful crescendos when all voices join together, the sounded soars right up the center of the church into the vaults. At the beginning of the evening, the director announced that this piece is so rarely performed in this manner, i.e., encircling the entire church, that at the end of the evening the choirs would rotate a full 180 degrees, and thus performed it a second time which completely changed the effect from the first time!

[Chrisiant]

To me, this is the music of the angels. Each voice is unique, each song subtle in it’s different yet it fits together and the whole is greater than it’s parts.

[johnappleseed]

Where did these Tears come from? come on johnny, you're a grown man.

the beauty is this, is soulcrushing!

[skotgat]

Heard it during an exhibition in London a few years ago... This was a rearrangement by Janet Cardiff. She had placed loudspeakers around a bench and each of the 40 voices was transmitted through each one. The structure gave the impression of being in the middle of a choir of real people. It was extraordinary. I listened twice, silently. It spoke directly to my soul.

[joshuamoore]

The visuals accompanying the most beautiful and complex movements of this actually LOOK like a stained-glass window.

[Oceananswer]

This must've been mind-blowing when Queen Elizabeth I heard it, not only from the number of singers but just the sheer order, complexity, and sophistication of it. How Tallis not only manipulated the acoustics to make the voices of the separated choirs bounce off the walls, the dramatic pauses and managed to arrange all of these voices to sound as if another voice was being plucked from one that was already singing. Being a musician herself, she must've thought this was unlike anything she had ever heard before. Jesus, Tallis was a genius!

[mauricedesaxe]

Listening to this piece at high volume is amazing! You can pick out various voices, and it all sounds so complex and detailed. Always a favorite to come back to.

[bootlegapples]

You see with time measured colors but imagine this played around you in a cathedral from 8 positions surrounding you like the heavens in a time absent all modern technology, no radio internet or television.What an experience it must have been.

[TheApostleofRock]

WOW.  Absolutely BREATHTAKING.  I randomly clicked this and I had instant goosebumps

[francinesicard]

I cannot listen to it without tears running down my face and I am not given to tears.  Absolutely sublime prayer when you have lost all hopes and don't know to whom to turn to. A cry of hope, a cry of despair, a cry towards God!

[samwoodburn]

This piece makes me tear up in the most wonderful way. God damn...

[mji]

One of the most spectacular pieces of Tudor choral music, Thomas Tallis's Spem in Alium for 40 voices, is said to have first been performed for Queen Elizabeth I from the tops of the Nonsuch Palace (a place that does not even exist anymore). Just wow...

[smalin]

I'm the person who wrote the animated graphical score software for Björk's Biophilia app, but to say that this way of visualizing music was entirely my invention would be over-stating the point. I've been doing this for a long time, and I've probably developed it more than anybody else, but the basic ideas were around long before I was on the scene.

[nmo]

This brings back memories of 48 years ago as a young tenor at St. James Cathedral in Toronto, Canada, looking at the score for this piece in wonder with my fellow young tenors and counter-tenors. Wonderful rendition of the piece - I still have my long play copy of the David Willcocks version of the beautiful composition. Thanks for doing this.

[kimberlylamm]

Amazing, when I listen to choir it feels like you’re listening to an organ playing