I listen to a fair amount of choral music, from plainchant and organum up through modern and contemporary works. I think the short answer is missing, which is that most choral music just isn’t that exciting.

The Wikipedia article for the Motet has an interesting quote which echoes the sentiment here:

> [the motet is] not to be celebrated in the presence of common people, because they do not notice its subtlety, nor are they delighted in hearing it, but in the presence of the educated and of those who are seeking out subtleties in the arts.

This quote is attributed to Johannes de Grocheio in the 1200s! That means that people have been saying that choral music is hard to appreciate for more than seven hundred years.

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bobbiechen 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

I totally agree - I've sung in a few choirs myself but even I myself hesitate to attend choral events sometimes. It takes effort to appreciate the depth involved, even with modern choral music (think Eric Whitacre) or even gospel choir, compared to other forms of entertainment.

I also agree with the article that understanding the blend of voices is best "when you are singing in the midst of the action" rather than on a recording. But also, that means it's hard to gain familiarity with specific songs or genre-specific styles, which is another barrier to entry.

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dhosek 3 days ago | parent [-]

I think there’s a big issue with the recording style used for choral music. It tends to be recorded with a far mic in an echoey room which gives the experience of hearing it in church, but I think close micing the individual sections would give more of a sense of being in the choir and really help make everything more distinct. I don’t know any choral music recorded this way, but I know that one of Tony Banks’ (keyboard player for Genesis) orchestral suites was recorded this way which I think worked well.

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Aidevah 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

A recent recording of Obrecht masses had close mic, recorded in a studio usually used for pop music with very little echo, with one voice per part [1]. The effect really is quite startling. The last time choral music was recorded like this was (coincidentally another Obrecht mass) more than 30 years ago [2].

I think a lot of vocal music written around 1500 would benefit from this approach. It has been remarked that this is really a sort of sacred chamber music rather than music requiring a huge choir. The music moves too fast and it's very difficult for a big choir in a very resonant space to do Obrecht, Josquin and friends full justice.

[1] https://hyperion.lnk.to/cda68460 [2] https://www.medieval.org/emfaq/cds/dvg102.htm

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haberman 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

I completely agree that one-per-part singing really brings out the beauty in 16th century choral music. I sing in a choir that specializes in music of this period, and while our live performances usually use two singers per part to fill a room, our recordings are more often one-per-part with relatively close micing.

We do record in churches because we like the reverb, so it's not quite the dry studio sound you're describing, but we do prioritize a clear sound stage where all of the parts can be clearly heard.

We've found that a Blumlein mic configuration (two figure-8 pattern microphones placed at a 90 degree angle from each other) helps to create this clarity of texture, where all the parts can be heard individually across the stereo image, especially when listening with headphones. I can't take credit for this idea though: we learned it from the sound engineer who records the Tallis Scholars, who told us that they record in this configuration.

Here are a couple examples of tracks recorded using this style:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZgo2Z17nNQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6r0iyq7AvaU

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Aidevah 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

That Byrd is very nice! The individual voices came across very well on my IEMs.

I'm used to reverb as well, and the complete lack of reverb in these recordings still sound a little weird to me, as if they are singing in a closet. But even in the 15th and 16th century vocal polyphony was likely performed (often?) in places other than the resonant nave or choir of a large church. I read that aristocratic (or ecclesial) patrons would have singers perform in private chambers, and performance of votive masses at a private chapel to the side of main space in the church would have very different (and quite dry) acoustics.

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omnicognate 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Please, please, please do this! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45011044

I do realise that's a monumental undertaking, though :-D

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haberman 3 days ago | parent [-]

Ha, I don't know much about Dolby Atmos and spacial placement. But from prior experience I'm somewhat skeptical about what this kind of clever DSP can do for choral music.

For example, when I learned about convolution reverb, and how it should theoretically be able to simulate the unique reverb pattern of any room, I was initially excited about the possibilities. But after trying it I was underwhelmed.

That said, I'm open to being convinced. If you know of any compelling demos of this kind of spatial placement, I'd be interested to see.

I had not heard of Nonsuch Palace, despite having a passing interest in Henry VIII and certainly a large interest in Tallis! Is it thought that Spem was performed there?

	▲	omnicognate 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Atmos on earphones is done by manipulating the waveform that reaches the eardrum to reproduce the distinctive impulse response due to the sound bouncing off different parts of the ear as it arrives. (Come to think of it I guess that's really also a form of convolutional reverb.) I think it's cool that it can be done on earphones at all, and with head tracking the effect can be noticeable at least, but I don't think it really adds much. I find earphone listening sort of envelopingly directionless in a special way of its own that I enjoy anyway. On a multi-speaker separates system, though, I think it's done simply by attenuating the signal to each speaker. Whether it's just that or something more sophisticated, the effect is much stronger and adds a lot more to the experience. A good system can place sounds clearly anywhere within a full dome enclosing the listener. The problem is that very few people have such a system, so the audience isn't huge. (That said, Apple Music heavily promotes spatial audio, so an Atmos Spem in Alium might reach more people just from search placement...) What Atmos adds beyond surround sound (which itself offers untapped opportunities for Spem in Alium) is: * It carries independent position data for up to 100 tracks, which can be edited (so you could experiment with the placement). * It adapts to the set of speakers available at playback, rather than having a fixed track per speaker. * It works on earphones, to some extent at least. * It has vertical as well as planar positioning, so the "balconies" would work. If you want to hear the results, a listening room would be the place. If you're in London, maybe here: https://tileyard.co.uk/stories/tileyard-london-dolby-atmos-s... I don't know of any renaissance choral music available in Atmos. Most of Deutsche Gramaphon's new recordings use it, so there might be some good classical examples there. A listening room should have general demos that would show the effect off. I think the Nonsuch Palace thing is just a suggestion rather than anything strongly historical. Wikipedia mentions it [1]: > This account is consistent with the catalogue entry at Nonsuch Palace: Arundel House was the London home of Henry FitzAlan, 19th Earl of Arundel; Nonsuch Palace was his country residence. Nonsuch had an octagonal banqueting hall, which in turn had four first-floor balconies above the ground floor; on this supposition it could have been the case that Tallis designed the music to be sung not only in the round, but with four of the eight five-part choirs singing from the balconies. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spem_in_alium

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omnicognate 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

I want a recording of Spem in Alium done with a mic per singer, placed spatially using Dolby Atmos and arranged as they might have been in the octagonal banqueting hall of Nonsuch Palace: surrounding the audience (in the round) and with four of the eight choirs up on balconies.

(Say what you want about "spatial audio" on earphones - if you're lucky enough to have a good home cinema separates system it's awesome, and this would be the ultimate application for it IMO.)

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simonask 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

There's lots of choir music recorded this way. Check out Caroline Shaw's "Partita for 8 voices", for example.

	▲	dhosek 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		D’oh! I even own this one!

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omnicognate 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I don't really know what's meant by "exciting" here, but there's plenty of choral music that's upbeat, joyful and rhythmical. For me the most enjoyable form of musical "excitement" is frisson, which choral music has in great abundance. Nothing can give you goosebumps like a good choir.

I disagree with the premise. I don't think there's anything inherently "harder to appreciate" about choral music. It's just a personal, and no doubt culturally influenced, preference. I struggle to enjoy opera and hip-hop, but that's on me. I don't go around writing articles about how hard they are to appreciate.

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sim7c00 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

i think is also matter where you listen it. i think its very dull, but in a good church or room with a choir who is used to that specific place suddenly its like magic.