# Good Antiphonal Music from a Large Cathedral?



## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

Here's the challenge. I'd like to find some more recordings in HUGE spaces, something to show off imaging on my stereo. I have Stuart Dempster's recordings from the Fort Worden cistern, I have the Deep Listening Band's recordings, I have Evelyn Glennie and Fred Frith in The Sugar Factory. I have Tony Levin inside the Widow Jane Mine in Iron Mountain. Paul Horn Inside The Taj Mahal and the pyramids at Cheops. 

I have a lovely DVD of Monteverdi's "Vespro Della Beata Vergine" recorded inside the Chateau De Versailles, where the vocal soloists are positioned way up in the balconies and vestibules.

What I would *like* to find would be some Renaissance choral music recorded inside some drafty old stone church, but recorded at a distance. That last bit is the hard part. Everyone wants to close mic choral music.

I'd settle for some similarly-distanced recordings of small pipe organs, or shawm ensembles, or strolling lutenists, or....

Suggestions?


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

How about some Henry Brant?? Very much into "space" music...
My favorite is "Orbits" - for 80 trombones (yes 8-0, eighty), organ, and sopranino voice
Cool piece!!


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

VERY nice recommendation, thanks! Had not heard this composer before.

Coincidentally (maybe?) when your recommendation came in I was making a CD of the Epic Low Brass, a one-off ensemble of 23 New York brass players which includes 11 bass trombones, 6 contrabass trombones, 6 tenor trombones, 6 tubas, and 3 cimbassos. They only recorded three tracks together, but they put forth a really fearsome racket.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

NoCoPilot said:


> VERY nice recommendation, thanks! Had not heard this composer before.
> 
> Coincidentally (maybe?) when your recommendation came in I was making a CD of the Epic Low Brass, a one-off ensemble of 23 New York brass players which includes 11 bass trombones, 6 contrabass trombones, 6 tenor trombones, 6 tubas, and 3 cimbassos. They only recorded three tracks together, but they put forth a really fearsome racket.


Epic Low Brass!! I'll have to check them out....


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

Glad I could return the favor


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

NoCoPilot said:


> Glad I could return the favor


Henry Brant was an American composer (1913-2008) iirc....he was known for spatial music....positioning performers and groups in all different locations throughout a concert venue....he visited Eastman when I was there, really quite a character, with this heavy jacket and dumpy-looking baseball cap....musicians scattered and grouped all over the Eastman theater....he also specialized in musical " "personifications" - ie - various groups representing physical or psychological entities often in opposition to one another in a musical plot or narrative... very much stimulated by Ives "Unanswered Question".


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## MRJames (Nov 10, 2020)

Since the early 1990s the British composer Benedict Mason has written several venue specific works under
the heading 'Music for Concert Halls'. Each of these works is written to exploit both the acoustic and
spatial properties of the relevant buildings.

Mason has composed two such works for the Royal Albert Hall (RAH), the Clarinet Concerto (1995) and
Meld (2014). Meld, a Proms commission, was performed at the RAH in 2014 (Prom 41) by Chantage and the
Aurora Orchestra. A film of the performance is available here:


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

Any recordings?


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## classical yorkist (Jun 29, 2017)

Here's a performance of Monteverdi's vespers recorded in St Marks in Venice.




You want to be looking for polychoral music like Giovanni Gabrieli or Henrich Schutz.
Heres some Gabrieli


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## NoCoPilot (Nov 9, 2020)

Nice YouTube videos, but are there any commercial recordings that utilize big spaces for polychoral music?


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## Azol (Jan 25, 2015)

Choral works of Rihards Dubra are probably going to fill the bill. Recorded in the grand Riga Dome.






Not a choral work, but this Bruckner 8 was recorded in a huge cathedral. Bruckner 4 is also available on DVD.


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## classical yorkist (Jun 29, 2017)

NoCoPilot said:


> Nice YouTube videos, but are there any commercial recordings that utilize big spaces for polychoral music?


https://www.brilliantclassics.com/articles/c/cori-spezzati-venetian-polychoral-music/


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