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