Concerning the Issue of Compositional Technique in Polychoral Works (Based on the Motets by Thomas Tallis and Alessandro Striggio)
Abstract
The article is devoted to the comparative analysis of two significant compositions from the Renaissance era — the motets endowed with forty separate voices: Alessandro Striggio’s Ecce beatam lucem and Thomas Tallis’s Spem in alium. The distinguished principles of counterpoint having been revealed, as well as the different kind of work with the musical material and choral parts refute the widespread thesis that Striggio’s motet could be considered as a model for Tallis’ motet. At the same time, it is possible to observe a common general compositional technique for both of these motets — by means of imitational writing. The latter explains the logic of the composition of these two musical masterpieces: the gradual buildup of the respective parts and the combined groups of parts makes it possible to display control of the vertical element with a forty-part tutti and avoid parallelisms. The imitational and polyrhythmic counterpoint in Spem in alium also casts doubt over the hypothesis of the possibility of preliminary “chordal” sketches for ten voices in the case of Tallis’s motet, although this could be valid in the case of the motet Ecce beatam lucem, which is similar in its texture to the chordal tonality that appeared in the subsequent musical period.
Keywords: polychoral motet, Thomas Tallis, Alessandro Striggio, imitation, counterpoint, soggetto
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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.56620/RM.2025.1.089-102
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