ABSTRACT
A room in the traditional, physical sense is a contained landscape, a box in which air is surrounded by walls, a ceiling and floor, affected by contents, furnishings, decorations, size and physical shape. It is thus a sound world in which the transmissions have finite boundaries, and governed by the individual properties of the environment. A space is where readers find ourselves at any one time, and if they are to work in or with it, or live in it, their must know how its audio presence affects us. The chapter concerns itself with performance spaces designed as receptacles for created human experience. The nature of recording within a public arena brings into focus the role of the space itself, in shaping the sound. Thomas Tallis’s forty-part motet Spem in Alium requires at least the electronic simulation of a cathedral space to give it its true character.
