immersive music -this is the way to hear choral music

I experienced this at the Baltic today: really loved it. ...
Janet Cardiff ‹ Detail ‹ Exhibitions ‹ What's On ‹ BALTIC: A reworking of the renaissance choral work for forty voices Spem in Alium Nunquam Habui 1573 by Thomas Tallis, The Forty Part Motet consists of forty separately recorded voices played back through forty individual speakers grouped in eight choirs of five singers. The work allows the audience to get inside the music and experience it almost tangibly as the voices weave in and out of each other.�

The thing is I love Tallis' music; so that was a first 'good'. Then, I like to sing choral music; second good. But then this way to hear it is brilliant. Normally, I hear choral music either from a fixed point within the choir I'm singing in or from in front of a choir (or a speaker or two). But this is great: to be able to be in the middle of the 'choir' and to be able to wander around and to move towards or to move the head to listen more closely to a particular voice or group of voices -lovely.

I even like the way that the sequence starts with the clearing throats and small talk of the members of the choir before they are called together to sing together.

I think that music is often a more immersive art form anyway -but this ups that by allowing the listener to be 'inside' a ring of sound. I liked, too, the opportunity to tune into more particular parts and the greater sense that could give of closing in on a performer in a way that would be embarrassing or offputting if it were a live performance similarly arranged.

Nice.