‘Forty Part Motet’ held over for one last weekend

Janet Cardiff’s sound installation features 40 speakers blasting operatic voices — men, women, and children — singing Thomas Tallis’ “Spem in Alium Nunquam Habui.”

The Forty Part Motet
Photo credit: Joeff Davis

If you have not yet had a chance to take in Janet Cardiff’s “Forty Part Motet” at the High Museum, the exhibition is being held over through the weekend — till Sunday, February 15. For those who are unfamiliar, this sound installation comes from the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), and features 40 speakers positioned in a large oval blasting operatic voices of — men, women, and children — singing Thomas Tallis’ “Spem in Alium Nunquam Habui” (1556). Each voice was recorded individually, and played together to recreate Tallis’ choral composition. In a word, it’s mesmerizing: A beautiful, 14-minute head cleaning experience that plays over and over again. With each passing run it becomes increasingly clear that the installation is all about the space, texture, and the architecture of sound itself, and how the brain and the ears make sense of so many voices coming together at once, and all of the subtle and hallucinatory side effects that happen along the way.

Photo credit: Joeff Davis

Photo credit: Joeff Davis