Polychoral music was once popular among the sixteenth-century church composers, as we can find in one of the biggest and most popular Renaissance motets written by Thomas Tallis (1505-1585) in around 1570, Spem in alium, which is written for eight choirs of five voices each. Although it was unclear where the polychoral style was invented in, it was popular among the composers in the northern Italy and used in the churches including the San Marco di Venezia, thus also called as ‘the Venetian polychoral style’.

This thesis will explain about the Catholic church liturgy and the mass ordinary. It will also discuss about the development of mass ordinary in polychoral style from the perspective of historical context and music analysis by taking example of and furthermore looking deeper to a double choir mass setting composed by Josef Rheinberger (1839-1901) and Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958).

Finally, practising the polychoral style through the composed practice work Mass of Light and adding the contemporary music elements into it. I hope to present an original idea of church music by utilising traditional method, exploring the possibility to create a human-voice based soundscape, a mixture between the classic and contemporary music in a choir setting.