Gabriel Jackson
Sanctum est verum lumen
Vocal scores on hire
Forces or Category: 40-part unaccompanied SATBarB
for 40-part choir (8 x SATBarB)
Sanctum est verum lumen was written as a companion piece to Spem in alium to celebrate the Tallis quincentenary. Jackson explores a variety of ways of combining the forty voices: there are massive contrapuntal tuttis, antiphonal exchanges between groups of singers, huge monolithic chords, and an 'über gimel' for the eight sopranos alone. The piece is essentially about light, and the text, though funereal in origin, is radiantly optimistic and invites a variety of ways of evoking that sense of light in music - from gentle luminosity to fiercely dazzling brightness.