courtesy of Vintage/Anchor Books
The book behind the unlikely re-emergence of Thomas Tallis' 'Spem in alium.'
File this under Strange Bedfellows. The crazy-huge success of E L James' Fifty Shades erotic
trilogy — which as of late May stood at more than 10 million sales in
all formats and 60 physical printings, according to publisher Vintage
Books — has made quite the impact in ... classical music, of all things.
Consider this: Thomas Tallis' wondrous 40-part motet Spem in alium,
written around 1570 and recorded by The Tallis Scholars more than 25
years ago, has bounded up the classical charts, thanks to its mention in
the first installment of Fifty Shades.
I've just learned through fans' postings online — I must admit I haven't read the book — that Spem is what the seductive Christian Grey is listening to on his first night with the book's heroine.
This
unexpected rebounding has been enough of a high/low cultural collision
that Peter Philips, the very proper and rather starchy founder and
director of The Tallis Scholars, has actually issued a statement about
it. "I haven't read Fifty Shades of Grey," Philips said, "but I
am most grateful to the author for introducing so many new listeners to
the musical sensation that is Thomas Tallis's Spem in alium.
Written during the reign of the first Queen Elizabeth it features 40
individual voices singing in Latin that combine to a thrilling climax
for the words 'respice humilitatem nostram' (be mindful of our humiliation)."
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