Using slightly different colors for each voice in the piece makes it more interesting than the just using real people voices as in the original. It gave me a new way to look at this kind of sacred music, which always kind of left me cold. You give it new life.

Sounds really good. Thanks for sharing!

Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Still working on this piece...I've now got about 18 minutes of the +/-23 mostly finished.

Richard,
 
I must confess that I am a huge aficionado of the music of Thomas Tallis ; I have his complete works on disc along with multiple versions of his best compositions. His visionary and inspirational music has an ineffable celestial quality, unique in my experience, which speaks to a sublime sense of spirituality. I could go on and on, but suffice it to say I have listened to his music on a daily basis for years.
 
I have long thought that many of Tallis’ compositions would make fabulous instrumental transcriptions (most of his oeuvre are acapella choral pieces) as most of them are contrapuntal settings as elegant and sophisticated as a Bach fugue. There aren’t that many instrumental recordings of his music (years ago, The Kronos Quartet did a wonderful reading of his surpassing masterpiece Spem in Alium that is one of my most treasured recordings), so I am delighted to come across this project on the Songs Forum.
 
Salve Intemerata is a very interesting and good choice for an instrumental. It is Tallis’ earliest known large scale masterpiece and it represents an astonishing achievement for a then-unknown church musician in his mid-twenties. Salve is written in phrygian mode -the same mode as his more famous 3rd Mode Melody which Sir Ralph Vaughan Williams used as the basis for his masterpiece “Variations on a Theme by Thomas Tallis”- and this mode (I think) imparts a mysterious quality to both compositions.
 
I find this (partial) rendering of Salve Intemerata drop dead gorgeous. The synth sounds are rich, sustained, layered, and thick, with slow attack/decay not unlike the human voice or a horn. There is good contrast between the string, horn, and organ voicings.  About halfway, there commences a luminous, sustained, and gentle crescendo that I just can’t get enough of. I greatly admire the phrasing/shaping of the melodic lines. Very artistic. 
 
I am hearing an original and unique interpretation of an almost 500 year old masterpiece. All that glitters is gold. I can’t wait to hear the entire project.
 
Cheers,
 
Bert

Bert,

Your comments are so very complimentary, and as they are coming from someone who really knows and has an affinity for this music, I hardly know how to respond adequately beyond "thank you!" I find it especially meaningful that you, as someone who is intimately familiar with Tallis' music, have found something to enjoy in my electronic rendition. I too love this music, and I hope it is apparent that I have the greatest respect for it. Somehow Tallis managed to combine introspection, beauty, a sense of form and balance, and great depth of emotion in his work.

As far as this particular piece is concerned, I've noticed that many commentators prefer the subsequent mass Tallis wrote based upon this music (Missa salve intemerata), citing the mass as a superior, more mature work. I find that i prefer this earler piece though. I really like the way it unfolds slowly over time, forming a sort of majestic arc as it progresses. It is very difficult for me to create a recording of a work of this length, though. I find it hard to keep it unified and coherent on the one hand, while on the other trying to maintain forward momentum and I guess "freshness" for the listeners' ears thoughout the piece.

I'm very glad the synth is working well for it. My goal with recording music of this sort is to hopefully demonstrate some expressive capability of synthesizers. I want it to sound like there's a human or humans behind it all, not a machine. I'm trying to sound something like an ensemble of instruments of some kind (real or imaginary), played together but with emotion and feeling. Hopefully I've done this to a certain extent, and accounts for the "organic feeling" noted by Stevec above (thank you, Stevec!).

Again, thank you so much for your comments. Your kind words and encouragement mean an awful lot.

Richard

Absolutely beautiful

Hello, this comes at the perfect time for me.  I have lately been listening to Hildegard of Bingen, Rachmaninoff "Vespers," and Barber's "Agnes Dei."  This would fit very well into that rotation.
 
Now I can skip "Millenium of Music" radio show on the Public station this morning.
 
Nice, you are good.
 
Jesse Q. Screed

Richard,
I spent some time this morning meditatively listening -multiple times- to this splendid instrumental version of Salve Intemerata, and, a great choral version of the same by the Tallis Scholars (listening to choral music is something I frequently do Sunday morning in lieu of attending a church service). This close comparative listening makes me certain that SI was a truly inspired choice for an instrumental. Your version greatly enhances my appreciation of the choral version, while the choral version, likewise, greatly enhances my appreciation of your interpretation. In both versions, the ethereal & celestial concinnity, present in so much of Tallis’s work, shimmers briightly.
 
A quality of music that I prize most is warmth. And I find it remarkable how much warmth I feel in your digital recording of Salve Intemerata. I attribute this warmth to your instrument (an analogue synthesizer) and the fact that you expressively recorded this awesome masterpiece, line-by-line, directly into your DAW, in real time.
 
Also, I agree with your sense that Salve Intemerata is a superior work to (the subsequent masterwork) Missa Salve Intemerata, as this subsequent mass was clearly derived from SI, and, it actually quotes the seminal composition extensively. (The essential notes to Chappelle Du Roi Complete Tallis Works state unequivocally that Salve Intemerata is Tallis’s 2nd greatest composition, with the astonishing Spem in Aleum his “Everest” and SI his “Matterhorn”.)
Richard, yours is a massively hip cover. Bravo!
 
Cheers,
Bert