Choral Music Bliss
Last week I discovered a website with music from the 2002 World Choral Spectacular, courtesy of my sweetie pointing me to a link elsewhere on that website. The concert I'm currently listening to is of the World Youth Choir, which is composed of 100 teenagers from all over the world. The singers must be phenomenally good individually, and of course the choir as a whole is astonishing. They just did a motet by Thomas Tallis in *forty* parts.
Think about that for a moment.
From a practical standpoint, there aren't forty notes in any given chord available within human vocal range, so there has to be a whole lot of overlap, but of course each voice part is moving in a different direction.
The overall effect is of a wall of sound with abstract motion as the overall sonority constantly shifts, yet since it's a 16th century piece it has the sort of polyphony you would expect of the period. It was like listening to a kaleidescope. Amazing.
If you care to listen, that particular concert is at http://americanpublicmedia.publicradio.org/programs/world_choral/020809pm.shtml
and the site with all of the concerts is at http://americanpublicmedia.publicradio.org/programs/world_choral/archive/2002/features/
But be warned that there are hours, and hours, and hours, of choral music there. I started listening last week and haven't gotten through all of it yet.
Ahhhhhh.... happiness.
[EDIT] Hey
meirwen, if you go to about 58:00 on the World Youth Concert (the first link), you'll hear a piece that might be familiar. You went to Spain with the College Choir, right?