November 19, 2016–March 19, 2017, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art

Artist Janet Cardiff created this sound installation. She commissioned England’s Salisbury Cathedral Choir to perform the choral arrangement Forty-Part Motet (also called Spem in Alium or In No Other is My Hope). Thomas Tallis, one of the most influential English composers of his generation wrote it in the mid-1500s. Cardiff’s 11-minute recording of the Salisbury Choir is sung a capella and in Latin. The term motet refers to sacred choral music usually multi-voiced and without instrumental accompaniment. The musical composition created by Tallis, and sound installation by Cardiff, represent extraordinary works by composer and artist.

Forty-Part Motet (2001) is comprised of 40 high fidelity speakers mounted on stands configured in a large oval, approximately 70 by 45 feet. Each speaker, positioned at eye level, and facing into the oval, emits the voice of one member of the choir. The speakers are arranged in eight groups of five individual choirs, made up of a soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, and bass.

Visitors may wander among the speakers, listening to individual voices, or move to the center of the installation to hear the full polyphonic effect of the combined vocalists in this interactive and immersive experience. Cardiff remarks that it is “like walking into a piece of music.” The polyphonic composition represents sound as sculptural form. The music flows in patterns around the oval of speakers and between various choirs who perform in oppositional counterpoints, one to the other. The discovery of Forty-Part Motet in a museum setting may be surprising since we more commonly expect to encounter paintings, sculptures, and decorative arts. This sound sculpture is even more unusual than contemporary video installations, which typically involve visual elements along with sound.

Forty-Part Motet is an emotionally compelling tour de force. It has been called “achingly beautiful” and “transcendent.” Music is the most direct of all the arts, flowing in real time and striking at the core of our being. Cardiff states, “People need this emotional release. They need to have this ability to be in the moment and to feel the sense of a presence and spirituality that music like this brings to them.” Forty-Part Motet represents the spiritual in contemporary art. At a time when the world seems particularly precarious—spiritually, politically, economically, and environmentally—when emphasis is put on all things ordered through rational thought, and when the pace of life moves with alarming speed, Forty-Part Motet offers moments of transcendent experience.

This exhibition was organized by the National Gallery of Canada. Support provided by H&R Block and our Honorary Committee.