PROGRAM
Thomas Tallis: Missa Puer natus est nobis
João Lourenço Rebelo: Panis angelicus
Thomas Tallis: Suscipe quaeso Domine
David Yardley: Psalm 33 – Ye just men, have fullie joye in the Lord
Brooke Shelley: Tanquam sydus matutinum
Antony Pitts: Requiem for the Time of the End – In Paradisum
Thomas Tallis: Spem in alium*
ARTISTS
Susannah Lawergren – Soprano
Elise Morton – Soprano
Sonya Holowell – Mezzo-soprano
Emma Warburton – Contralto
Dan Walker – Tenor
Elias Wilson – Tenor
Hayden Barrington – Baritone
Antony Pitts – Director
with
The SongCo Chorale
and friends
We end our European tour with the marriage of Spanish and English soundworlds in Tallis’s sumptuous seven-part Christmas Mass, Missa Puer natus est nobis, alongside music born from both ends of the Iberian peninsula, and Tallis’s own 40-part motet, Spem in alium.
Our 2022 Underground series returns to the joyful harmonies of English composer Thomas Tallis, culminating in his 40-part motet, Spem in alium. The Song Company’s 2022 Ensemble Artists join our Principal and Associate Artists, educational partner the Conservatorium High School, and The SongCo Chorale in the spectacular multi-choir work. Peter McCallum in his five-star review in The Sydney Morning Herald said that “one could have listened to it 40 more times” – across our two concerts in the Sydney CBD (The Crypt at St. Mary's Cathedral & The Neilson Theatre on Pier 2/3 in Walsh Bay) he and you will have just four more chances to hear it! Apart from two renditions of this mighty motet in each concert, we get our celebrations in early with Tallis’s full-on seven-part Christmas Mass, Missa Puer natus est nobis, which appears to have been written with Spanish singers and a royal audience in mind. Australian composer Brooke Shelley alludes to the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela near the North-Western tip of the Iberian peninsula in her motet, Tanquam sydus matutinum, while Tallis’s contemporary, the Portuguese composer Rebelo enchants with a motet full of so-called “English” cadences. To take us back to the cusp of the Middle Ages, we sing out an uplifting injunction from David Yardley (currently Australia’s High Commissioner to Kiribati) in his neo-mediaeval setting of Psalm 33. And to celebrate Antony Pitts's seven-year tenure as Artistic Director, we introduce the final performance of Spem in alium with the eight-part In Paradisum from his Requiem for the Time of the End.
In 2019, The Song Company performed Tallis' "Spem in alium" and received glowing comments and reviews such as this one by renowned music critic Peter McCallum in The Sydney Morning Herald: