Janet Cardiff and the Forty Part Motet | TateShots

Janet Cardiff is a Canadian artist who works chiefly with sound and sound installations; especially a form she calls audio walks.
Her artwork 'Forty Part Motet' is an audio installation reworking the sixteenth-century choral work Spem in Alium by English composer Thomas Talli.
The artist worked with the Salisbury Cathedral Choir to record 40 individual singers, playing each voice through its own corresponding speaker.
The speakers are carefully positioned in eight different groups of five, responding to the structure of Tallis’s complex vocal piece, or motet. Each group forms a choir of five singers with different vocal ranges: a bass, baritone, tenor, alto and soprano.
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[@berryseinfeld6772]

Just experienced this at NCMA. No words really, I almost cry as I type!

[@ncheadhntr3]

I had the fortune of experiencing this display at UNC Smithsonian Light & Sound Exhibit in Raleigh, NC. I had no idea what it was or was about, I simply walked into the room and it took probably 3 minutes for me to realize what was happening before I opened the exhibit guide to read up on Cardiff's art. I stayed in this exhibit for, at least, 10 replays. First 5 for the sound/soul experience and then the last was spent moving around listening to each individual speaker. There was always a 5-10 minute break in between the free-roam performances so I also enjoyed people watching and studying their expressions. And it was during these intermissions I continued to walk around but the speakers weren't quiet. The recording immediately restarted but for that 5-10 minutes you could here each and every performer preparing and talking and joking and warming up and clearing their throat. While I was in between two of the speakers I distinctly recall a teen-ager chatting with the "speaker" singer next to him and he took a swig of beverage and said, "Oh no, now what if I have to burp" and the 'speaker' next to it replied "better do it now". For 5-10 minutes I walked around and listened to these very candid and familiar conversations (also a choral singer). Then it got gradually quiet and the piece started again. It truly is the highlight of my experience that day at the exhibit.

[@Tate]

Michael, last autumn we has the ORA Singers perform the Tallis piece in Tate Modern's Turbine Hall as a socially distanced live stream. You might be interested to hear it - it's on our Tate Talks KZbin channel

[@Trainofthought73]

This is the most beautiful excbition I went in it really touched my hart I nearly cried

[@JLori-dt4gz]

This idea is so beautifully put into fruition! I once had the pleasure of visiting a Yeats soundscape - recordings of him reading poems - at the bottom of the Ireland national library (Dublin) in 2015, and the audio memory stuck with me in a way rarely achieved through visual mediums.

[@francesschaefer]

I have seen/heard this twice now--and it is spectacular because as an undergraduate pianist all performance majors had to be in a large ensemble for 4 semesters. Since I do not play a second instrument but had a lot of choral singing growing up, well I was in a choral group. The director decided to program THIS PIECE and so I have sung as one part of forty, it was an amazing experience!! That was about 38 years ago. I stumbled upon this whole exhibition @The NC Museum of Art in Raleigh, NC, "You are Here : Light, Color, and Sound Experience" through a friend who tracks these things in our area...I did indeed cry. My father was a choral director and also had degrees in musicology, composition, and library science, and for musicology his area was music of the Medieval and Rennaissance periods, and one of his favorite composers was Thomas Tallis. THANK YOU Janet Cardiff...this is great!

[@hughnortham8411]

In The Strange Death of Europe (Bloomsbury 2017), Douglas Murray finds it striking that people thought the achievement was Janet Cardiff's rather than Thomas Tallis's.

[@G.B.P.]

Yeah, she did nothing. All credit to Tallis.

[@rtflone]

@@G.B.P.C'mon now, she did a little something. Without Janet Cardiff's efforts, we probably wouldn't be having this conversation..

[@nihil1]

It was my second time seeing it. The first was at Inhotim, the second at Tate Modern: two very different, very special places. The sum of these experiences were larger, more profound than what I would imagine.

[@cortneymatz]

What a fantastic concept. I am inspired on several levels!

[@manuelb7255]

Down the rabbit hole I go

[@AudiobookLibrary24-7]

Yes!

[@rickartkunst]

Transformative

[@richardcressey5854]

The vision, the artistry, the genius belongs to Thomas Tallis. Cardiff's 'conceptualisation' amounts to very little.

[@VisualVortexArtStudio]

Richard Cressey I understand where you are coming from but respectfully, I believe you are wrong, this conceptualisation created an experience for the viewers / listeners that immersed them in the sound and created conscious energy in this sound that would be much deeper or more engaged with than if it wasn’t produced, it doesn’t take away from Tallis and is a separate thing all together, they are combined and multiplied together, which amounts to a significant amount.

[@douglasanthonycooper3789]

Richard, did you experience the piece? It's utterly unlike listening to a human choir. Or a stereo. A masterpiece, really.

[@thevampiregirl7529]

@Richard Cressey It's good to have people to make sure that the right people get the credit they deserve, it really is. Whilst Tallis does deserve credit, I have visited the Tate Modern and will go there again with my school in 2 weeks and from my memory, when I visited last time, my word was it a beautiful experience. I had put off going into the room, thinking that it would be boring but eventually I decided to check it out. When you go in,the room is almost entirely pitch black with just one or two benches in the middle. Around you are what feels like 40 speakers mounted on poles, each one starts at a different time and it feels heavenly, honestly. I stood, mesmerised, listening in awe to the harmonies dancing around room. I felt so enchanted and I HAD to record it, I had to. I recorded a two-minute video of it and listened to it all the time when I got home. What's really cool is that you can hear that when the choir(and I'm sure I could hear some children whispering amongst the choir)finish the song, you can hear them setting up the wires and cables and talking about how they're ready to sing and whatnot. I feel like I haven't done the room justice but I've tried to. So,once again well done for giving your thoughts and opinion but I still think Cardiff gave the project her all, down to every last meticulous detail. If you don't believe me, check it out for yourself as KZbin can't do this justice entirely either. Btw, I'm in Year 9 (U.K. Year 9 that is) so trust me, that even for a teenager who is bored by all the other rooms in the Tate Modern, this one is magical.😇😊😏 (Sorry if you don't like emoticons). Have an amazing day!

[@G.B.P.]

Thanks Richard. It’s ridiculous how people think she’s a genius because of this installation.

[@verasousa4462]

Oi

[@haruhi3520]

How does the splitting of the sound work in terms of speakers? Multiple mono inputs going out into mono outputs?