XL - choral works for 40 voices

sung by Rundfunkchor Berlin, conducted by Simon Halsey, and recorded in surround sound: 40-part music by Thomas Tallis and Antony Pitts, plus pieces by J.S.Bach, Harvey, Kodaly, Nystedt, Sandström, and Henry Purcell

Tallis: Spem in alium

Purcell/Sandström: Hear my prayer, O Lord

J.S.Bach/Schnebel: Contrapunctus 1
Nystedt: Immortal Bach

Anonymous: Veni, creator spiritus
Harvey: Come, Holy Ghost

Kodaly: Laudes organi

Pitts: XL

There is indeed scale and grandeur aplenty in this adventure in sonorities! Here is a rare occasion to relive five centuries of choral polyphony, from the forty (different!) voices of Thomas Tallis’s famous motet Spem in alium to the admiring tribute to it by Antony Pitts, appropriately named XL – as in forty voices, but also as in ‘eXtra Large’…"

"As we celebrate the 500th anniversary of Tallis' birth, a problem that many choirs and choral directors will be tackling is what to do with forty singers once they have been organized. Conductor Simon Halsey has commissioned Antony Pitts to write a piece designed as companion for Thomas Tallis' 40-part masterwork, Spem in alium. Between these two chronological extremes, are other similarly emblematic works of the seventeenth (Purcell), eighteenth (Bach) and twentieth centuries (Kodály, Harvey, Sandström), all displaying the vocal mastery of the professional Rundfunkchor Berlin. Recorded in glorious surround sound, one hears the alto and bass voices at rear left and right and sopranos and tenors at front left and right; thus, the listener is in a position similar to the conductor’s. In the Tallis Spem in alium and Pitts XL the choir is disposed in a circle. In the Tallis, choirs 1-4 are arranged front left to right and choirs 5-8 rear right to left. Pitts chose for his work a layout going from choir 1 front right to choir 8 rear left. Great diagrams illustrating the various choir formations appear in the accompanying booklet. The Bach, Bach arr. Schnebel [75 this year] and Nystedt pieces are all linked and the clever programming also marries the chant Veni creator spiritus with Jonathan Harvey’s Come Holy Ghost. The title XL, refers to the text (Psalm 40), 'extra-large' and 'excel'."