Score available here.

Programme note:

Peter’s Spem project creates a vast polyphony of voices from a single instrument and player. I decided to write a piece that responds to the forty parts of Spem in a somewhat more modest way: a single cello playing two simultaneous voices.  

However, rather than exploring double stops or creating the illusion of multiple parts through arpeggios, I wanted to project the sound of two distinct instruments. By using harmonics and natural bowed sounds, the cello can produce two highly differentiated timbres; these are further divided by being very distant registrally. The interaction – conversation, interruption, occasional fusion – of these timbres is the focus of this short piece.

A popular instrumental form in Elizabethan England, Tallis wrote many In Nomines. They are a wide variety of generally contrapuntal pieces, all based on the plainchant Gloria Tibi Trinitas. My piece uses the cantus firmus as the basis for the lower part, with the upper voice in harmonics dancing a toccata.