Anthony Esolen, How to Tell a Barbarian, Part II

And I've been listening to the polyphonic music of Thomas Tallis lately -- on a CD called Spem in alium, with David Willcocks directing the Saint John's College Choir. Check out the haunting Cum transisset Sabbatum, with its blending of simple, long-held soprano tones and more hurried tenor and bass melodic phrases. It has struck me that that is the sort of thing that Shakespeare would have heard in London when he attended services on a feast day. Perhaps -- someone who knows more about liturgical history can advise me here -- perhaps he might have heard the polyphony of Tallis or Byrd or Bull on any Sunday, in one of the bigger churches of London. What is most impressive to me about the singing -- usually unaccompanied; these are compositions for the human voice, with Spem in alium pulling off a forty-part harmony -- is the unearthly sound of the children; the soprano parts were sung by boys. Now that's something. We have nothing comparable: children were an essential part of works of the highest artistic caliber.

Cicero: de Finibus I
The Latin Library: de Finibus