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Contemporary Sound Art at the Cloisters
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By CORINNE RAMEY
More than a decade ago, when the sound artist Janet Cardiff first listened to a CD of Thomas Tallis’s motet "Spem in Alium," she was frustrated by the recording’s compressed, dense sound.
"It was a mush of voices," she said.
On Tuesday, Ms. Cardiff’s solution, "The Forty Part Motet," opens at the Cloisters, the medieval branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The installation is a pair of firsts for the museum: the first time the Cloisters has shown contemporary art, and the first time the Met has presented sound art.
The work, which runs through Dec. 8, consists of 40 high-fidelity speakers arranged in an oval, in the Cloisters’ Fuentidueña Chapel. Out of each speaker comes the voice of a single singer, giving the listener the impression of being surrounded by the layered, three-dimensional sound of a live choir. The sound comes from a recording of the Tallis work made specifically for Ms. Cardiff’s installation by members of the Salisbury Cathedral Choir, with each part recorded on an individual microphone.
"It’s a piece that deconstructs music and turns it into sculpture," said Ms. Cardiff.
On a recent afternoon at the Cloisters, Titus Maderlechner wrapped wires, adjusted volume levels and made sure the controlling computer, housed in a makeshift closet, was functioning properly. (Mr. Maderlechner, whose official title is "tonmeister," works for Ms. Cardiff.)
Mr. Maderlechner, who said he had set up the piece more than 30 times, knows each singer intimately. Asked about his favorite choir member, he put his ear to a speaker, seconds before a chorister’s confident entrance. "He’s very good," he said, nodding approvingly. "He’s very good and sings on time."
"Forty Part Motet" runs on a 14-minute loop: The 11-minute Tallis work is preceded by a three-minute prologue, during which the singers cough and whisper. "Up in that group there are children," said Anne Strauss, a Met curator, pointing at a cluster of speakers across the room. "They talk about one of the choristers being in the lavatory."
The speakers, set on stands of roughly human height, have an anthropomorphic feel. "They look like monks," said Ms. Strauss.
"In Japan, they were like this," Mr. Maderlechner said, bending his knees to make himself a foot shorter.
Recently, Ms. Cardiff and her husband and artistic partner, George Bures Miller, were curious about one of their favorite voices in the installation, a resonant bass. "George is so connected with that voice, as a person," said Ms. Cardiff. A Google search turned up a funeral announcement.
But the man’s voice remains very much alive. Said Ms. Cardiff, "He’s still singing in the choir."
A version of this article appeared September 10, 2013, on page A23 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Sounds Of Art Uptown.
