A Musical Labyrinth

OK—here’s what it looked like….

But that was hardly the point—the piece was billed as an “audio installation,” and it was done by the Canadian artist Janet Cardiff, who had used the motet Spem in alium by Thomas Tallis in 1570 as the basis for her piece. And it was a simple concept, really—the motet is composed for forty separate voices. Yup, forty people all singing a different part. And Cardiff had recorded each part, and played each through a separate speaker. Thus, you have forty disembodied voices—all joined together to sing one amazing work.

The idea was that you could walk around from one speaker to another, and experience the work as if you were both singing or—alternatively—walking around and through a choir.

Did I do it, the two times I heard the piece?

Nah—as an orchestral musician, I know the feeling of being in a cello section, and hearing the distorted sounds of various members and sections of the orchestra. But yes, there were people moving around—attracted perhaps by this voice or another. As well, some people were slowly circling the room; one father was allowing a girl held in his arms to point out where she wanted to go.

But I wanted to experience the work as Tallis had intended me to—with a choir behind me, ahead of me, and on both sides. Actually, there are eight choirs of five voices each; here’s a great description via Wikipedia:

It is most likely that Tallis intended his singers to stand in a horseshoe shape. Beginning with a single voice from the first choir, other voices join in imitation, each in turn falling silent as the music moves around the eight choirs. All forty voices enter simultaneously for a few bars, and then the pattern of the opening is reversed with the music passing from choir eight to choir one. There is another brief full section, after which the choirs sing in antiphonal pairs, throwing the sound across the space between them. Finally all voices join for the culmination of the work. Though composed in imitative style and occasionally homophonic, its individual vocal lines act quite freely within its fairly simple harmonic framework, allowing for an astonishing number of individual musical ideas to be sung during its ten-to-twelve minute performance time. The work is a study in contrasts: the individual voices sing and are silent in turns, sometimes alone, sometimes in choirs, sometimes calling and answering, sometimes all together, so that, far from being a monotonous mess, the work is continually presenting new ideas.

The work is not often performed, as it requires at least forty singers capable of meeting its technical demands. The discipline that comes with performing the masterpiece is highlighted in the importance of the conductor and the performers alike. Whilst performers are distributed throughout a venue, the conductor becomes truly the hub for the piece throughout, as often there is little or no visibility between the performers, and a large venue will present acoustical challenges, not regarded with traditional choirs co-located.

OK—so what’s the experience like? Well, you’re awash in sound, even though the piece starts with a single voice from the back. Part of it is the echo—and for an echo, what better place that the Fuentidueña Chapel in The Cloisters? 12^th century, almost austere, with the dominating presence of a painted crucifix hanging from the opening of a half dome. Thus, it was a combination of new and old—the music and architecture matching, the speakers and technology varying.

And the piece itself has always struck me as one of the strangest I know. It’s surprisingly dissonant, and seems almost modern at times. It always feels as if Tallis has slowed down time—everything is a sonic deep underwater oceanic swell. You’re as suspended as the crucifix, though you are, in fact, experiencing the passion.

Because it is deeply moving music—less music than experience. And about music, words fail. Can I tell you transcendent, as Jim Dwyer, a writer in The New York Times called it? Of course. But it also feels as if Tallis is working out some psychic odyssey—it has the feeling of being a musical labyrinth. And what’s a labyrinth? Here’s what one writer had to say:

The Sacred Labyrinth Walk, Illuminating the Inner Path, is the ancient practice of "Circling to the Center" by walking the labyrinth. The rediscovery of this self alignment tool to put our lives in perspective is one of the most important spiritual movements of our day. Labyrinths have been in use for over 4000 years. Their basic design is fundamental to nature and many cultures and religious traditions. Whatever one's religion...walking the labyrinth clears the mind and gives insight. It calms people in the throes of life's transitions.

For me, Tallis had stepped through the centuries, taken me by the hand, and led me—eyes closed, body swayed—through to the center; then he had taken me back to the same shore. Or rather, not to the same shore, though it was and wasn’t. Why? Because I was different.