I spent a chunk of the weekend rehearsing Tallis’ Spem in Alium, and as I did so, I realised how very many more parts it has than any other piece of English Tudor church music (I am aware of its relationship to Striggio’s Ecce beatem lucem and other highly polychoral continental pieces). I know of some pieces in ten parts by Weelkes, and Byrd’s Great Service is also in ten parts; is there anything else in this repertoire* in more than ten?
The high point for me is still the opening few bars (as I’m in choir 8 in this performance, I can appreciate them without worrying about my own entry). Would they be as beautiful if they led to a piece in a mere eight or ten parts, or is the effect partly due to anticipating all the other voices that are gradually going to enter?
*I shouldn’t really contrast ‘English’ and ‘Continental’ in the paragraph above, as I have now remembered that O bone Jesu by the Scottish Robert Carver is in 19 parts. I once performed this in a concert with Spem, in a punishingly high key.