It’s no small challenge to be at all unique as a composer when geniuses like Thomas Tallis were creating music like Spem In Alium four hundred years ago. He composed the piece, whose title is Latin for “Hope in Any Other,” as a motet for forty individual voices in eight five-member choirs. Historians believe it may have first been performed with each choir along a different side of an octagonal tower of Nonesuch Palace, with alternating choirs raised on balconies. (Learn more on Wikipedia.)
But you know what is new, and blazing new trails seemingly every day? The technology to record and play back audio in immersive and responsive formats. The New Dublin Voices performed Spem In Alium in the Beckett Theater in Dublin in a configuration that mimics that of Nonesuch’s octagonal tower, and with a virtual reality headset, you can see and hear this performance as if you were standing in the middle of it. Even without the headset, all you need is a pair of headphones and you can “look” around the stage using directional navigation in the video player window while hearing the results of your changing perspective.
This is presented on the website of Soundfield, makers of the microphone used to capture this beautiful performance. Soundfield’s site recommends using either the Chrome or Internet Explorer browser to view the video, as others don’t support playback of ambisonic recordings (the particular format used to present this 3D interactive audio). View below or follow this link.
If you want to experience the difference, you can find a fantastic stereo performance by The Tallis Scholars here or watch below: