My taste in music is broad. Some would say eclectic. Some might very well say random. Most would say piss poor.  It falls in to four broad groups:

• Early music, particularly renaissance polyphony
• Classical and romantic music
• Musical theatre
• Pop music (particularly 70s/80s artists)

When listening to classical music I usually veer towards large, bombastic works – music for jolly times. The same is true of musical theatre (of course).

Early music and pop music are more polarised. Both contain pieces of  high elation, and also deep contemplation. Sometimes one piece is suitable for both.

I thought I’d take a look at the top 15 tracks of the last five years, and see what record my musical diary reveals.

There are several artists and songs I listen to over and over again. Psychologists have theories about what this says about a person, I won’t go in to detail, but in a nutshell walk away slowly. No sudden movements. There is even a last.fm group for people like me, but as the poor deluded fools are mainly listening to Coldplay (over and over again), I haven’t joined.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, as someone who loves singing and music in general, my top 15 tracks show I turn to music at the very best, and the very worst times.

Top tracks of the last five years

OK pop pickers, let’s go…. Here’s the raw data.

Good times

Tracks 1, 5, and 7 (Spem in Alium): The soundtrack to big decisions, small decisions, ups, downs, pretty much everything in life. Sometimes I play it and it’s a raw, all consuming emotional experience. Sometimes I play it for white noise, and barely notice it. If you said “Rob Fenwick” in a game of word association, more than one person would say “Spem in Alium.” I have spent at least 55 hours listening to this work, and I’ll probably play it again tomorrow. More often than not it’s an anthem of joy.

11 (Ecce beatam lucem): A very similar work to Spem, but discovered some time after so doesn’t enjoy ‘first love’ affection.

Tracks 2, 3, and 4 (Jersey Boys): This is all good stuff. Pure musical theatre schmaltz, to which I was introduced by a good friend. Often hits the iPod on a summer’s day. A sign of many happy days.

8 (Beautiful people): A TV show theme. How deeply embarrassing. But a pure feel good choon, so a sign of many a happy day.

13 (Monteverdi 1610 Vespers): The first movement is an expansive joyous sound. If Spem were to be a funeral piece for me, Deus in adjutorium meum intende is there for if/when I walk down the aisle.

Bad times

Tracks 4, 9, 12 (Ariadne’s Lament): I’m a little sorry to see this feature so highly, as these tracks show hours of troubled and perhaps conflicted thought. This collection of Monteverdi madrigals is haunting, and particularly useful when mentally navigating ethical dilemmas.  These tracks were prominent during a period in one job when we were making big and difficult decisions with real impact on the lives of  many good people.

10 (Misty rain): In the weeks immediately after the onset of Tinnitus earlier this year, I needed this track of natural rain noise playing through speakers next to the bed in order to mask the whistling in the ear, so I could get to sleep. These days the tinnitus is less of an intruder (it’s still there, it’s just familiar now), so this track is rarely played.

14 (Run): A tearjerker. Featured heavily in the services following the death of friend and fellow Liberal Democrat campaigner Neil Trafford.

15 (Life is): Again I’m surprised to see this in the top 15. This song by Runrig is for getting through the most difficult days. This piece doesn’t make you feel better, but it does keep you company if feel awful!

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So on that happy note, that’s it… I wonder how this list will change in the next five years.

Quite often I find myself driving home in the late evening, listening to Sue Marchant on radio Suffolk. One of her set piece questions is to ask her main guest where in time and space they would choose to travel if they could make a single trip in a TARDIS. It is a question that is simultaneously rather narrow (even geeky), and huge (sometimes inspirational) in scope.

I know what my answer would be. To the Chapel Royal of 1568, and lunch with Thomas Tallis. Like many enthusiasts of Tallis and his incredible composition Spem in Alium, I have questions I’d like to put to him. Not least of which is the piece’s relationship with Allesandro Striggio’s Ecce Beatam Lucem (embedded above).

Historial records indicate that Ecce was composed for a first performance in 1561, possibly a royal wedding. So far as we know, Spem was first performed seven or eight years later at Arundel house. As relatively little is known about the history of Spem a plausible if not definitive theory has gained currency – namely that the Duke of Norfolk, on becoming aware of Striggio’s work, commissioned Tallis to compose a work of equal or greater scale and complexity as a birthday gift to Elizabeth I.

While Tallis’s work makes a more finely developed use of counterpoint and spine-tingling antiphone, has seen greater enduring success, and could be argued to be technically superior, I prefer (on no rational basis whatsoever) to see the pieces as siblings. For example, both use the same technique of building steadily to great tutti moments – Striggio on the “O” of O mel et dulce nectar (oh honey of sweet nectar), and Tallis on the “respice” of respice humilitatem nostram (look upon our humiliation / lowliness).

But the killer commonality is the modesty. For me you will find it in the score of Ecce, and in the story of Spem. At the time he chose the words to use as a basis of  Spem in Alium, a plea to the almighty to watch over us in our lowliness, Tallis was at the zenith of his career – a musical giant who had survived numerous seismic shifts in the religious and political fabric of England. He could have been forgiven an inclination towards triumphalism, particularly given his royal audience.

When I listen to Ecce Beatam Lucem it is the last minute which blows me away. The whole piece is a joy on the ears, but as the piece approaches what could be a rousing finale with the words “This delight, this peace, this goal, this mark. Draw us from here straight to Paradise” the dynamics take the deliciously unexpected turn of slipping away from us – ever diminishing until the final word paradisum -paradise – is almost a whisper. There are no such dynamics written in to the scores I have. I would love to know if this is interpretation, or the will of the composer. In either case it’s little short of genius.

If you are north of the border you can hear Spem in Scotland on 2 July at the East Neuk festival, I’ll be there at the generous invitation of friends.

Then a week later there is what true artists call “a real humdinger” of a concert at Southwark Cathedral. I’ll be attending this one too – it will be very interesting to hear how the forty individual voices are able to fill a space as cavernous as Southwark.

So far, my pilgrimage hasn’t been possible – the year has been busy, and I’ve been learning more about the piece and its composer at a rate which has lead to a constantly changing stream of thoughts and opinions, each needing further work to understand better. I’d like my thoughts on the piece to have settled down a little before going to the places of Tallis’s life and death. In particular, if there is anyone out there of a historical bent who could make an educated guess as to the probable locations of Court in the years 1568/69, I’d really like to hear from you.

In the meantime, some of you might enjoy sharing this moment i just recorded where I indulge in the idea of an eighty party motet. I should’ve done my hair. I could’ve been less effusive. I shouldn’t peer over my glasses. Singing was a mistake. It could probably have used a script, but I thought I’d just fire up the camera and record this moment of late-night Bank Holiday early music geekery. Enjoy.

Update: I have heard a couple of people be quite sniffy about the King’s Singers version of Spem. They are, whisper it….. populist.

As there are only six singers in the group, they used multi-tracking to produce their recording. I find it one of the most interesting recordings. Fascinated then to see that they made a video when recording it, which gives some sense of the technical complexity (though a minor gripe is that it doesn’t show off the key antiphonal moments well). These guys either have an incredible sense of timing, or a metronome ticking in their headphones!