Another Saturday Night at the Restaurant

So as any self respecting artist is wont to do, I work in a restaurant to help pay the bills. It's a wonderful authentic Italian place with a great wine list and high enough prices that my tips aren't too lousy. I love the work because I love food, I love talking to people, and I love talking to people about food. Food is probably my second passion other than music. And if you've ever seen me eat...I'm sure you know that. But one of the other perks of the job is every once in awhile I'll sing to a table, putting my voice to good use. Now I know I'm not blessed with a truly wonderful operatic voice, but I think my voice is nice and pleasant, and people seem to really enjoy it when I sing. I love to do it because it makes them happy, and gives them something to remember. OK enough back story...

Last night I was closing up, and I had the last table of the night. I was in the second dining room and the only three people in there were me and the couple. They were very nice people, very chatty, and it helped make it a little easier to make it through the last hour or so before closing. We talked about their kids, their jobs, and definitely about the food (they got the aragosta cotta, it's a whole lobster, split, then grilled and stuffed with crab meat and finished in the oven with white wine sauce, it's DELICIOUS). But they asked me what I do besides wait tables (of course everyone assumes that people who wait tables must do "something else" in order to survive), and I told them that I'm a singer and a composer. They asked me what kind of music I sing, and I told them mostly classical and opera. Her eyes got wide when I said this, and she told me that she had never seen or heard any opera performed live before. I told her I was happy to sing for her and she obliged. I sang a short song by Bellini and it had her in tears. She said she had never heard music that beautiful performed live. I was honored that she thought so highly of me, and I'm really glad that I could make her day. It's another reason why I love and study classical music, it has this intrinsic connection for people, especially the voice...even if people can't understand the lyrics they can somehow understand the universality of the sentiment.

Today's selection by Thomas Tallis. If you don't know Thomas Tallis (and you should), he was a renaissance composer in the 16th century in England, where he is widely considered one of their best early composers. His music is strikingly beautiful and simple, with almost textbook voice-leading. His use of harmony really sets the stage for William Byrd and other later composers. His ability to overlap a single line of text in all 4 voices is really astounding. His music has a natural lilt and pulse, almost like the piece has its own heartbeat.
This particular motet is set for 40 voices in 8 5-part choirs. It uses all the stylistic elements of that time period, from antiphonal sections, to dynamic shifting, and even putting voices of the same part in different choirs in counterpoint with each other. At other times you'll hear some sections holding long chords while the theme is sung in another choir, lending an almost organ pedal quality to the sound. He even puts in a part where all 40 voices sing in 4 part harmony, like a Protestant anthem. He pulled out every trick of the time in order to write the motet. It's really textured and astoundingly complex, and I'm pretty sure it was done as a bar bet. That's the only way I could see someone writing for 8 choirs simultaneously. I'm sure some Italian wrote something ridiculous for 32 voices and someone in England heard about it and drunkenly told Tallis one night, "hey Tommy, some Italian guy just wrote for 32 voices...bet you couldn't do that!" And Tallis was all like "Pssssh, amateur, I bet I could do 40...easy!" And thus "spem in alium" was born.

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Now playing: Peter Phillips | The Tallis Scholars - Spem in Alium
via FoxyTunes