Prom 50: The Sixteen Sings Tallis’s Spem in alium by Tavener, Tallis, MacMillan, Tye, Górecki, H. M., Byrd, Traditional, Ó (2022/2022), Seoltóir Harry Christophers, Royal Albert Hall, London, United Kingdom

Now in its fifth decade, Harry Christophers’s chamber choir The Sixteen is one of the enduring wonders of the choral scene, its precision and effortlessly expressive singing touching audiences all over the world. This late-night meditation in the Royal Albert Hall centres on Tallis’s extraordinary Spem in alium – the magnificent 40-voice motet that’s one of the supreme achievements of the English musical Renaissance. Around it, like planets in orbit, The Sixteen weaves a sequence of choral music that criss-crosses a millennium, extending from medieval plainsong to the 21st century, and works – such as Sir James MacMillan’s Miserere – that were created specially for The Sixteen’s sublimely beautiful sound.