The earth moves: Antoine Brumel’s 12-part Earthquake Mass & Tallis’ 40-part motet from Peter Phillips & The Tallis Scholars

Watercolour of Nonsuch Palace where Tallis’ Spem in alium may have premiered

The Earth Moves: Brumel: Missa Et ecce terrae motus, Gombert: Lugebat David Absalon, Josquin: Absalon fili mi, Tallis: Spem in alium; The Tallis Scholars, Peter Phillips; Cadogan Hall
Reviewed 17 June 2025

Did the earth move for you? The rich textures of Brumel’s 12-part Earthquake Mass alongside the spatial and sonic effects of Tallis’ 40-part masterpiece.

Peter Phillips and The Tallis Scholars returned to Cadogan Hall on 17 June 2025 (the concert is repeated on 25 June) for The Earth Moves, an evening that included Antoine Brumel’s 12-part Missa Et ecce terrae motus, the so-called Earthquake Mass, alongside Tallis’ 40-part motet Spem in alium and motets by Josquin and Gombert.

Antoine Brumel was a younger contemporary of Josquin, an important member of the Franco-Flemish school that dominated Italian sacred music in the 1500s. He is best known for his so-called Earthquake Mass, named not because the work has any sort of depiction of an earthquake, but for the plainchant on which the work is based. But it is notable also for the rich polyphonic textures that Brumel achieves thanks to using 12 voices. The work’s most important source (and the earliest) is one created for a performance given by Orlandus Lassus in Munich around 1568 (well after Brumel’s death which was probably in 1513). This mammoth manuscript, in some 60 folios, has the adult singers’ names recorded in Lassus’ hand. The final folios are partially lost as the manuscript had rotted, and thus the work needs some editorial hand. For this performance, The Tallis Scholars’ soprano Amy Howarth had created a new edition.

Rather disappointingly, from my point of view, the work was not performed with the full complement of 40 singers required for Tallis’ Spem in Alium which concluded the concert. Instead we had 13 singers, one voice to a part with two sharing the low alto part. This meant that in Cadogan Hall’s somewhat dry acoustic, there was a tendency for individual voices to stand out in a way that was not desirable, this was particularly true of the tenors, whilst other younger singers seemed slightly too reticent. 

In using his 12 voice parts, Brumel does not create washes of polyphony, there are none of Tallis’ spectacular spatial effects from Spem in Alium. Instead Brumel uses blocks, taking the slow plainchant cantus firmus and layering it with 11 other lines. The result is a series of hypnotic undulating textures, sometimes fast and sometimes slow, the opening Kyrie introduced you to this magical and fascinating sound world. One where I could only imagine what the effect would be if sung in a large resonant acoustic. Contrast came between speeds, some sections being faster or slower. So, the Credo worked up quite a head of steam but then things slowed for the key ‘Crucifixus’ passage. Also, Brumel used blocks of voices, alternating high and low, thus creating both contrast and a feeling of lightness. This was particularly notable in the Sanctus, which moved from high and low incantations of ‘Sanctus’ to a full choral texture of gentle undulations, different voices emerging and retreating in the rich texture. As things got faster Brumel thinned the textures out. The Agnus Dei provided us with a sense of rich textures indeed, the interacting polyphony creating gentle undulations, with moments standing out including some lovely dark ‘Dona nobis pacem’ from the three basses.

The mass was punctuated by two motets, each for fewer voices. Lugebat David Abasalon, which is currently attributed to Nicolas Gombert, used just eight voices. The opening was slow moving, intense and sombre, yet with the various lines having moments of fast detail, and the whole grew in speed, strength and intensity for the powerful climax. Setting a similar text, Josquin’s Absalon fili mi was sung by just four singers, alto, two tenors and bass, creating a sober, dark and intense piece.

For the final work in the concert, the stage was filled by a choir of 40 singers, in one long double row so that Tallis’ spatial effects made the music move from left to right and back. Tallis’ piece has little to do with Brumel’s the two seem to live in different worlds, and Tallis is less interested in texture, per se, than in the spatial and sonic possibilities of using eight choirs. (The work may have been written for the octagonal banqueting room in Nonsuch Palace).

In this acoustic, the famously rich textures were remarkably clear and this was the sort of performance where you could marvel again at Tallis’ remarkable dexterity and cleverness, yet the whole seemed effortless and magical. But then this is a composer who could create apparently effortless magic in a tiny motet involving multiple canons!