World Symposium on Choral Music

Transcription

Hugh Ballou – US Representative, E-Mail: ballou@interkultur.com
Contents
Textual Presentation and
Representation in
Stravinsky’s
-
The Influence of
Znamenny Liturgical Chant
on the NineteenthCentury
to
-
la
October 2009
Vol. 50 • no 3
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Russian Choral School
A Guide for Performance
34
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Choral
Works
Chorral
a W
orks
or
ks
Articles
8 Textual Presentation and Representation in Stravinsky’s Choral Works
by Kevin Zakresky
20 The Influence of Znamenny Liturgical Chant on the NineteenthCentury Russian Choral School: A Guide to Performance
by Jeffery B. Wall
34 Beyond Error Detection:
A Cycle of Pedagogical Skills for Choral Conductors
by Patrick K. Freer
47 New Voices in Research:
Modernism and Byzantine Influence in Rautavaara’s Vigilia, Part One
by Charles W. Kamm
Columns
57 Repertoire & Standards Articles
Keep America’s Youth Singing
by Karen L. Bruno
Women’s Choir Rep
Repert
erto
oire Performed at ACDA National Conventions
in the Twenty-First Century.
by Debra Spurgeon
63 Technology for the Choral Director edited by Don Oglesby
Recording Your Choir
by C. Blair Bryant
67 Book Reviews edited by Stephen Town
73 Recording Reviews edited by Lawrence Schenbeck
79 Choral Reviews edited by Lyn Schenbeck
Inside
2
From the Executive Director
6
From the President
7
From the Guest Editor
19
In Memoriam
88
Advertisers’ Index
The Choral Journal is the official publication of The
American Choral Directors Association (ACDA).
ACDA is a nonprofit professional organization
of choral directors from schools, colleges, and
universities; community, church, and professional
choral ensembles; and industry and institutional
organizations. Choral Journal circulation: 19,000.
Annual dues (includes subscription to the Choral
Journal): Active $85, Industry $135, Institutional
$110, Retired $45, and Student $35. One-year
membership begins on date of dues acceptance.
Library annual subscription rates: U.S. $45; Canada
$50; Foreign Surface $53; Foreign Air $85. Single
Copy $3; Back Issues $4.
Permission is granted to all ACDA members
to reproduce articles from the Choral Journal
for noncommercial, educational purposes only.
Nonmembers wishing to reproduce articles may
request permission by writing to ACDA. 545
Couch Drive, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma 73102.
Telephone: 405/232-8161. All rights reserved.
The Choral Journal (US ISSN 0009-5028) is issued
monthly except for July. Printed in the United
States of America. Periodicals postage paid at
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and additional mailing
office. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to
Choral Journal, 545 Couch Drive, Oklahoma City,
Oklahoma 73102.
Cover art by Efrain Guerrero, graphic artist, Austin, Texas.
Inside art by Tammy Brummell.
Musical examples by Tunesmith Music <www.Tunesmithmusic.com>.
National Officers
President
Jerry McCoy
University of North Texas
940/369-8389 (voice)
mccoy@music.unt.edu
Vice-president
Hilary Apfelstadt
The Ohio State University
614/292-9926 (voice)
apfelstadt1@osu.edu
President-elect
Jo-Michael Scheibe
University of Southern California
scheibe@thorton.usc.edu
Treasurer
Jo Ann Miller
North Dakota State University
jo.miller@ndsu.edu
Executive Director
Tim Sharp
405/232-8161 (voice); 405/232-8162 (fax)
sharp@acda.org
Central Division President
Mary Hopper
Wheaton College
630/752-5828 (voice)
mary.hopper@wheaton.edu >
Eastern Division President
Lynn Drafall
Pennsylvania State University
814/863-4219 (voice)
led5@psu.edu
North Central Division President
Kevin Meidl
920/8324170 (voice)
meidlkevin@aasd.k12.wi.us
Northwestern Division President
Richard Nance
Pacific Lutheran University
253/535-7613 (voice)
nancelr@plu.edu@msn.com
Southern Division President
Bradley Almquist
Murray State University
270/809-6448
bard.almquist@murraystate.edu
Southwestern Division President
Galen Darrough
University of Northern Colorado
970/351-2290 (voice)
galen.darrough@unco.edu
Western Division President
Cheryl Anderson
Cabrillo College - VAPA
832/479-6155 (voice)
cranderson@cabrillo.edu
Industry Associate Representative
Alec Harris
GIA Publications Inc.
708/496-3800 (voice); 708/496-3828 (fax)
From the Executive
The summer season of the American Choral Directors Association
is a very busy time in the life of our individual state chapter groups.
The combined attendance at our state spring and summer conferences
outnumbers our more celebrated division and national conference attendance, and the vibrancy and intimacy evident at our state summer
conferences is impossible to duplicate at the larger biannual events.
It was my pleasure to visit several state ACDA chapter conferences
this summer, and from the dinner on the capital lawn in Mississippi, to
the salmon bake in Washington, to the student reception in Texas, to
the “dialogue” in Minnesota, to the retro “Staying Alive” disco night in
Tim Sharp
Nebraska, it is clear that nothing can replace the personal touch that is
given to our professional affiliation at the state and regional level. The opportunity to hear our own
students perform in honor choirs, the up-close-and-personal time we are afforded with our guest
clinicians and conductors, the sincere conversations that we are able to have with our leadership, and
the renewal of grassroots energy and program involvement, all take place most effectively at the state
chapter level of ACDA activity.
The American Choral Directors Association is rolling out a membership campaign this year that
will begin to show its effectiveness first at our seven Division Conferences this coming February and
March, and again at the state conferences next summer. It has been my pleasure to be involved to
some degree with the leadership of our national divisions as they worked with their planning committees toward their upcoming division conferences. The often-heard comment that our Division
Conferences now rival former National Conferences in their educational and performance programs
has never been more true than what has been prepared for you this coming February and March in
Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Minneapolis, Memphis, Denver, Seattle, and Tucson.
As money has tightened in everyone’s budget, it is more important now than ever to make the
most of our conference opportunities.To this end, I encourage you to start planning wisely to take full
advantage of the continuing education resources offered in our Division Conferences and their host
cities. On the following page, please find a thought-sheet as well as a work-sheet prepared to help
you formulate a proposal as you request funding for an upcoming conference, apply for professional
development grants, or otherwise seek to make a case for the irreplaceable experience and educational
benefits of an ACDA Division Conference. These templates are offered as a starting place to make
your own for your institution or funding source. If YOU are your funding source, use this material to
help you remember why these conferences are so important to your own retooling process.
And, in the spirit of paying forward consider sponsoring a pair of students, or better yet, a student
group, or a colleague, to attend a conference with you. If this is their first conference, you will help to
change the course of their professional lives for the better. Just say “road trip” to your choral students,
and the rest will fall in line.
Please borrow liberally and adapt the proposal ideas on the next few pages.
Chair, Past Presidents’ Council
Michele Holt
Providence College
401/822-1030 (voice)
Holtm@cox.net
National Past Presidents
Archie Jones †
Elwood Keister †
Warner Imig †
J. Clark Rhodes †
Harold A. Decker †
Theron Kirk †
Charles C. Hirt †
Morris D. Hayes †
Russell Mathis
Walter S. Collins †
H. Royce Saltzman
Colleen Kirk †
Maurice T. Casey
Hugh Sanders †
David O. Thorsen
Diana J. Leland
William B. Hatcher
John B. Haberlen
Lynn Whitten †
James A. Moore
Milburn Price
David Stutzenberger
Director
Tim Sharp
World Choir Initiatives
2011 World Choral Symposium in Argentina
“A new Symposium with new blood”…The 9th World Symposium on Choral Music (WSCM9)
will be located in the beautiful resort city of Puerto Madryn, Argentina, August 3-10, 2011.
Known around the region as a “singing capital”, the city of Puetro Madryn in the province of
Patagonia was settled by Welsh pioneers in the mid 1800’s, who quickly established the practice of vibrant 4-part hymn singing in their churches. To this day,
descendents of these early singing pioneers, deeply religious in their convictions,
are still thriving and active. Since the mid 1960’s, this singing movement has spread
to the establishment of numerous successful municipal and community choirs
whose broad repertoire of academic and folk music give life to choral singing in
the area. National and international choral festivals annually attract choirs from
around the world and give the inhabitants of the region a deep knowledge and
appreciation for choral singing.
WSCM9 invites choirs to explore their traditions, their diversity and look to
the future and offers choirs the opportunity to make an application for performance. The application deadline is October 1, 2009, with detailed application
and audition registration information posted on the extensive WSCM9 website
at www.wscm9.com. Click on “Choir Subscription” to receive audition criteria.
As prominently stated on their website, choral music is the perfect way to
celebrate creation, develop culture and preserve nature. Puerto Madryn is looking forward to receiving conductors and choir singers from all over the world
to live an unforgettable week of music and friendship, in contact with nature.
by: Bruce W. Becker, Executive Director, ACDA of Minnesota and IFCM member
Keys to Preparing a Funding
Proposal Toward Attending
an ACDA Conference
Be keen to the stated mission and objectives of your institution or employer,
writing your proposal in terms of addressing those objectives;
Plan and Propose well in advance.
By first studying the direction of your sponsoring institution through stated
mission and objectives, you will be well on your way to securing some, if not all,
of the funding necessary to attend your next ACDA conference. Even if the
primary goal of your institution is cutting costs, by knowing this is the prime
objective, you are closer to securing funding for the event by demonstrating
how the conference will save your institution money.
The second step is to study the offerings of the conference well in advance.
Write your request or proposal in terms of your institution’s mission and
objectives, and clearly demonstrate how your attendance at the conference
will advance those objectives. If the primary goal of your institution is placed
on financial cutbacks, choose interest sessions and multi-tasking opportunities
that are built around saving money, and write your proposal in terms of attending those sessions.
Place a dollar value on the following conference offerings, and demonstrate
the value of your chosen ACDA conference:
• Number of performances multiplied by your best conservative estimate
of the cost of each performance if attending at your local concert hall:
$ _______
Executive Director’s
Log
day planner
Oct 8 11
Webinar Recording
Oklahoma City, OK
Oct 1 0
OKC Philharmonic
Oklahoma City, OK
Oct 2 1
UCO Noon Concert
at ACDA Nat’l Office
Oklahoma City, OK
Oct 2 225
IFCM General Assembly
Orebro, Sweden
Nov 6 7
Conduct “St. .Paul”
Tulsa Oratorio Chorus
Tulsa, Oklahoma
Nov 12 14
Honors Chorus
Atlanta, Georgia
ipod
Circle of Time Nebraska Children's Chorus
The World Beloved: A Bluegrass Mass VocalEssence
RU'IA: Sacred Visions inspired by Islam
Eric Banks/The Esoterics
• Number of educational sessions (workshops, labs, masterclasses, demonstrations, interest sessions) you will attend, multiplied by your best
conservative estimate of the cost of each seminar if attended separately:
$ _______
• Number of choral reading sessions you will attend and value of music packets
received in each session if attended elsewhere: $ _______
• If your institution is hiring and the conference can be used as a marketing
resource for hiring, place a marketing value on the announcements, flyers, posters, etc., that you are able to circulate or distribute at the event:
$ _______
®
Kindle
®
The Element by Ken Robinson (Viking)
Blunder by Zachary Shore
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell (Little Brown)
Baudolino by Umberto Eco
Mendelssohn in Performance by Siegwart Reichwald
The Essential Rumi Rumi
The New Yorker magazine
Keys to Preparing a Funding Proposal Toward
Attending an ACDA Conference cont.
• If hiring, use the conference as a professional location to screen or interview
potential candidates. Place a value on this
opportunity: $ _______
• Place a value on a consultation fee for
buttonhole seminars or purposed networking: $ _______
• If the negotiated rate at the conference
anchor hotel represents a savings in terms
of basic rate, early registration, savings on
ground transportation, and other discounts,
be certain to point out the savings of money and time, and apply money to budget.
Further, apply time saved in transportation
by staying at conference hotel to extended
networking and conference opportunities
afforded by NOT spending time getting
from place to place: $ _______
• If receptions are offered, place a monetary value on what those networking
events are saving you in food and beverage
costs: $ _______
• If you are already an ACDA member,
demonstrate the membership dues in
terms of discount for attending the conference (applicable for all ACDA events as a
benefit of membership): $ _______
• If your institution sponsors an ACDA
student chapter, contact the ACDA Division Leadership (Division Conference)
or ACDA National Office (National
Conference) for ways students can get
involved in a conference as well as ways
this involvement could save you and/or
students money: $ _______
• If you are open to sharing a room, create
a list on an ACDA website forum, or on
Facebook, requesting a possible roommate
to share expenses: $ _______
• If the conference is within reasonable
driving distance, advertise early for a carpool or vanpool or even a chartered bus
by a state chapter to the event, splitting
travel expenses: $ _______
Once the funding is secured, the following are ways to take full advantage of the
conference toward making this the SINGLE
travel or conference event that you have
chosen:
• If hiring, or anticipate hiring, use the event
to advertise, network, screen, or possibly
interview candidates. If the conference
does not formally make this possible, set
this up in advance using the natural resources of any conference city.
• Most conference locations offer much
more than the conference. Locate archives,
museums, libraries, piano dealers, church
or school programs, instrument dealers,
mentors, or other resources that can be
legitimately utilized during the trip. Choose
one such destination offered uniquely by
the conference city and multi-task your
visit, doubling the value of your travel
expenditure.
• Use the conference for continuing education units, certification, graduate credits, or
other credentialing. If this is not formally
offered, create a credential that can be
validated by the conference leadership or
presenters.
• Be certain to make a presentation back
at your home institution that demonstrates
the “take home” that you took away from
the conference.
• Pass ideas and opportunities along to
colleagues that were not able to attend
the event. Rather than discarding music
you could not use, find someone that CAN
use that type of piece, program, or idea.
Become a network for others that didn’t
attend the conference.
Talking Points for your Employer, Chair, Dean,
Board, or other Supervisor
You already know you will come away
refreshed and recharged from an ACDA
conference, but how do you convince
your supervisor that you need to attend
this conference? The following are talking
points addressing the typical concerns:
• We are under-staffed; we can’t lose
you for that long.
This is a chance for inspiration with extraordinary teachers, conductors, and colleagues
from around the world. I’ll be attending
educational interest sessions, hands-on
workshops, and meeting with vendors, so
4
I’ll come back with more energy, ideas, and
new methods that will make me more valuable and productive.
• It’s too expensive/we don’t have a
budget for this.
This conference offers a great value—it is
four full days of programming, performances,
connections and experiences that can’t be
purchased at a better price. Hotel rates are
quite reasonable, and (to save even more)
I can split the cost of hotel rooms with a
colleague.
• We can only send you to one conference.
Why is this one the best?
ACDA is recognized worldwide as the authority for choral performance and choral
education. Even though this is a national
conference, attendees come from around
the world due to the uniqueness of ACDA
within the choral profession. To get a sense
of the presentations I’ll be attending, watch
a few videos from the 2009 ACDA National
conference (ACDA’s National YouTube site).
• What’s in it for us?
In addition to the countless idea-generating
presentations, interest sessions, performances, and workshops, ACDA offers continuing education verification and graduate
credit possibilities (check for your particular
conference).
Choral Journal • October 2009
Professional Development Request to Attend 2010
Conference of the American Choral Director s Association
To: [Supervisor]
From: [Your name]
Date: [Insert date]
Subject: Approval Request for American Choral Director s Conference
I am writing to request approval to attend the American Choral Director
s Conference, taking place DATE 2010 in PLACE.
nal and performance experience for choral music
The American Choral Director s Conference offers a comprehensive educatio
es, choral literature, choral pedagogy, and choral
professionals to grow their skill sets in the area of choral rehearsal techniqu
nal association for choral director s. ACDA offers
technologies. The American Choral Director s Association is the professio
ps, masterclasses, and in-depth lectures from
worksho
n
the only choral educational event which includes instructor-led hands-o
from the very best choirs of a variety of
ances
perform
features
ce
conferen
ACDA’s top choral educators and performers. The
In addition to the educational sessions and choral
performance types, including multiple examples from my field of choral work.
nity for me to learn new music in my area of teaching
masterclasses and performances, choral reading sessions offer the opportu
nals widen my horizon and professional network.
professio
and performance. Seminar s and buttonhole sessions with industry
all gathered within the embrace of this unique
are
students
and
rators,
Composers, publishers, conductors, educators, administ
offers technical roadmaps and insights from
professional conference. Premium content from ACDA leadership in 30 sessions
professionals who are leaders in the choral profession.
my job more effectively and reach key learning
Attending the American Choral Director s Conference will help me perform
objectives. The conference delivers content that will teach me how to:
[Select from the particular list unique to the conference you plan to attend]
The knowledge and skills I will acquire will be immediately applicable to my
current projects such as:
es]
[insert current projects unique to your institution, mission, and objectiv
You can see the full Conference offerings at www.acda.org [or insert your
own division conference website]
Below is a sample of my proposed agenda:
[add sessions and your proposed schedule at the Conference]
choral reading sessions, all performances, access to
The cost of registration is $$ and includes all educational sessions, new music
nities over the four days of seminar offerings.
opportu
ing
network
all
and
ns,
exhibitor hall, evening activities and selected receptio
The following is an estimate of additional conference costs:
Airfare or Mileage: [add expenses]
Ground Transportation and Parking: [add expenses]
Hotel: [add actual]
Total Cost to Attend: [insert total]
In terms of value, this is what I estimate this conference would cost me as
[insert estimated cost].
separate events throughout the year.
networking opportunities will be of great advantage to
The value of the education as well as the professionals I meet through the
year-round with the real connections I build with
[insert your organization’s name]. The benefit of my attendance will continue
ACDA professionals and member s of the larger choral community.
area of choral skills, performance, and literature
This conference represents ?? hours of real time continuing education in the
activities.
my
of
report
ce
conferen
e
review. Upon my return, I will assemble a complet
nal conference.
Thank you for considering supporting my attendance at this important professio
Kind Regards,
[Name]
National R&S Chairs
National Chair
Nancy Cox
580/482-2364 (voice); 580/482-1990 (fax)
<nrcox@swbell.net>
Boychoirs
Julian Ackerley
Tucson Arizona Boys Chorus
520/296-6277 (voice); 520/296-6751 (fax)
<ackerley@boyschorus.org>
Children’s Choirs
Robyn Lana
Cincinnati Children’s Choir
513/556-0338 (voice); 513/556-9988 (fax)
<lanarr@uc.edu>
College and University Choirs
William McConnell
St. Andrews Presbyterian College
910/277-5262 (voice)
<mcconnellwt@sapc.edu>
Community Choirs
Ron Sayer
Marshall Community Chorus
660/831-5197 (voice)
<ronsay@aol.com>
Ethnic and Multicultural Perspectives
Sharon Davis Gratto
University of Dayton
973/229-3946 (voice); 937/229-3916 (fax)
<grattosd@notes.udayton.edu>
Junior High/Middle School
Gretchen Harrison
Frontier Trail Junior High
913/780-7210 (voice); 913/780-7216 (fax)
<gharrison.jhms@gmail.com>
Male Choirs
Frank Albinder
202/986-5867 (voice)
<FSAlbinder@pobox.com>
Music in Worship
Paul A. Aitken
Boise First United Methodist Church
208/343-7511 (voice); 208/343-0000 (fax)
<paitken@boisefumc.org>
Senior High Choirs
Amy Johnston Blosser
Bexley High School
614/539-5262 (voice)
<ablosser@bexley.k12.oh.us>
Show Choirs
Ken Thomas
Enterprise-Ozark Community College
334/347-2623 (voice)
<kthomasmu@charter.net>
Two-Year Colleges
Paul Laprade
Rock Valley College
815/921-3347 (voice)
<p.laprade@rockvalleycollege.edu>
Vocal Jazz
Kirk Marcy
Edmonds Community College
425/640-1651 (voice); 425/640-1083 (fax)
<kmarcy@edcc.edu>
Women’s Choirs
Debra Spurgeon
University of Mississippi
662/513-6635 (voice)
<dspurg@olemiss.edu>
Youth and Student Activities
Jeffrey Carter
Webster University
765/760-3812 (voice)
<jrc@jeffreycarter.us>
From the President
During our recent national board meeting, I
gave a short statement of my hopes for ACDA’s
prosperity over the course of the next two years.
One of the most important aspects of that vision
statement included plans for the enhancement of
our international relationships.
As many of you know, Hilary, Tim, and I have
been working diligently over the course of the
past two years to reenergize our position on
the board of the International Federation for
Jerry McCoy
Choral Music (IFCM). ACDA was a founding
member organization of the IFCM and thanks
to diligent and focused partnerships with Michael Anderson and Philip Brunelle,
both members of IFCM’s board of directors, we have been able to reinvigorate
our participation in this very important organization. We will continue to do our
best to provide leadership within IFCM.
ACDA is also taking a bold step to formalize our relationship with INTERKULTUR, the non-profit wing of Musica Mundi, creator of the World Choir Games. In
partnership with Music Mundi, ACDA will assist in sponsoring the Choir Games of
the USA in 2010, the Choir Games of the Americas in 2011, and the World Choir
Games in 2012. Having participated as a jurist for the 2008 World Choir Games
in Graz, Austria, I can tell you we are involved in a world-changing endeavor. More
than 14,000 singers from around the globe participated in the 2008 World Choir
Games, enhancing our common good and furthering the influence of choral music
in changing our world for the better. Watch the web site and the Choral Journal
for more information about these events.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, ACDA partnered with several world choral
organizations to create the International Emerging Choral Conductors Exchange
Program. For more than a decade, this very important project has fallen off our
collective radar. At our recent board meeting, I proposed the reestablishment of
the conductors exchange program and laid out an agenda for ACDA’s leadership
of this project. The proposal was met with enthusiasm by the members of the
national board and steps have been taken that will culminate in our next international exchange during the division conventions in 2012. More information will
be forthcoming over the next several months about application processes and
organization of the exchange program.
As the world reels under the pressures of economic downturns and shifting
political alliances, as the voices of advocates for peace and tolerance meet an ever
greater din of opposition, participation in the choral art becomes more important.
ACDA’s international agenda will play a powerful role in enhancing understanding
and cooperation in the world.
Jerry McCoy
From the Guest Editor
In This Issue
One of the on-going issues for choral directors is
the intricate interaction of the aesthetic and cognitive
domains when text meets music. In his article, “Textural Presentation and Representation in Stravinsky’s
Choral Works,” Kevin Zakresky presents Stravinsky’s
advocation for the autonomy of music in vocal pieces,
believing “the music could only present the text, not
represent it.” As a result, Stravinsky’s musical choices
David Stocker
often created false accents in the “spoken language.”
Zakresky cites examples, particularly in Les Noces,
where the syllable rather than the word becomes the basic unit of the text settings.
He also discusses how, in Stravinsky’s opera/oratorio, Oedipus Rex, the text is “not so
much acted as displayed.” He concludes that “His [Stravinsky’s] style of vocal composition, in which neither music nor text is subordinate to the other, does not diminish the
text, but, in a way, allows for limitless interpretations of its meaning,”
Even though the strong sacred music tradition of Russia was evident from the late
eleventh century, various other national styles, especially Italian and German, became
popular to the extent that the Russian national style only reemerged in the nineteeth
century. This national style, znamenny chant, and its influence on Russian composers,
is examined in Jeffrey Wall’s article, “ The Influence of Znamenny Liturgical Chant on
the Nineteenth-Century Russian Choral School.”
Wall examines znamenny chant and its influence through a close look at two
compositions: Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Let Us Praise the Virgin Mary,” and Kastalsky’s “Today
the Virgin.”
Tracing the chant in Russian choral works is not always a simple matter, for while
“the chant is the over-all structural element, it is also the model for voice-leading
and phrasing.” Wall suggests rehearsal approaches and encourages more attempts at
performing this unique literature.
Patrick Freer, in his article, “Beyond Error Detection,” discusses the relationship
between unconscious/unvoiced philosophies of teaching and teaching style. “Conductors…deeply influence the choral experience…through their implementation of
philosophy and facility with pedagogical skills…”
Freer’s discussion is divided into the topic areas of: The design of rehearsals and
rehearsing; a cycle of pedagogical skills; and the giving of appropriate feedback. He
concludes that pedagogical transparency allows the choral experience to become a
“collaborative process more overtly shared by conductor and singers.”
Finally, I call your attention to our New Voices in Research, Magen Solomon, editor,
which features an article by Charles Kamm. This is Part One of a two-part discussion
on “Modernism and Byzantine Influence in Rautavaara’s Vigilia.” Kamm examines this
work by referencing the structure and musical language of the traditional Finnish Vigil
service, the formal unity of Vigilia, and some hallmarks of Rautavaara’s modernism.
The discussion will continue next month in Part Two.
David Stocker
Editorial Board
Editor
Carroll Gonzo
University of St.Thomas
651/962-5832 (voice); 651/962-5876 (fax)
clgonzo@stthomas.edu
Managing Editor
Ron Granger
ACDA National Office
405/232-8161 (voice); 405/232-8162 (fax)
rgranger@acda.org
Editorial Associate
David Stocker
281/291-8194 (voice)
dstocker@asu.edu
Patricia Abbott
Assn. of Canadian Choral Conductors
514/351-4865 (voice)
accc@ca.inter.net
Terry Barham
Emporia State University
620/341-5436 (voice)
tbarham@emporia.edu
Richard J. Bloesch
319/351-3497 (voice)
richard-bloesch@uiowa.edu
John Dickson
Mercer University
478/301-5639
john.h.dickson@mercer.edu
J. Michele Edwards
651/699-1077 (voice)
edwards@macalester.edu
Lynne Gackle
University of South Florida
813/909-1099 (voice)
mlgackle@arts.usf.edu
Sharon A. Hansen
University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee
414/229-4595 (voice)
sahansen@uwm.edu
Edward Lundergan
SUNY-New Paltz
845/257-2715
lunderge@newpaltz.edu
Donald Oglesby
University of Miami
305/284-4162 (voice)
DOglesby@miami.edu
Lawrence Schenbeck
Spelman College
404/270-5482 (voice)
lschenbe@spelman.edu
Lyn Schenbeck
Coweta County Schools
770/683-6837 (voice)
lyn.schenbeck@cowetaschools.org
Ann R. Small
Stetson University
386/822-8976
asmall@stetson.edu
Magen Solomon
University of Southern California
213/740-3225
magensol@usc.edu
Stephen Town
Northwest Missouri State University
660/562-1795 (voice)
stown@nwmissouri.edu
Textual Presentation and
Representation in
Stravinsky’s
Choral Works
Kevin Zakresky
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MUSIC
LYRICS
S
travinsky’s most frequent complaint about his opinions on the separation of musical meaning
the state of vocal music in the Western from textual meaning are reflected in his choral pieces.
Rather than responding to the poetic meaning of
tradition was that composers too often
try to marry the text to the music. In his texts, Stravinsky came to his compositional procePoetics of Music (speeches now attributed to Alexis dure by way of a text’s phonetic character and meter.
Roland-Manuel, but nevertheless orated by Stravinsky), Richard Taruskin states that, during Stravinsky’s time
the composer explains that when the aim of vocal in Switzerland (1914–19), the composer started to
music is to express the meaning of its text through develop a particular style of text setting where “the
music, “it leaves the realm of music and has nothing accents of spoken language were merely there to
be manipulated like any
more in common with it.”1
For Stravinsky, the ultimate
other musical parameter,
offender was Wagner, whose
for the sake of musical
music was “arbitrarily paraenjoyment.”3 Stravinsky
lyzed by constraints foreign
called this realization, that
2
to its own laws.” The genre
speech accents of a verse
of art song (a style of music
can be ignored when
where marriage of text and
sung, his “rejoicing dismusic is favored) was also
covery,” and cited Russian
par ticularly unsatisfactory
folk music as his primary
to him.
influence.4 In Dialogues,
Stravinsky advocated authe composer remarks
tonomy for music. In vocal
that when he works with
pieces, he believed that the
words, his “musical saliva
music could only present the
is set in motion by the
text, not represent it. If the
sounds and rhythms of
music were free from having
the syllables and ‘In the
to convey the meaning of
beginning was the word’
the text (which Stravinsky
is, for me, a literal, localbelieved was impossible
ized truth.”5 For him, “voanyway), composers would
cal music is bound to the
Portrait of Igor Stravinsky by Pablo Picasso, 1920.
be able to focus purely on
words.”6 He chose W.H.
Auden as librettist for The
musical concerns, crafting a
Rake’s Progress because of
language that is not bound
by literal concerns.This strong stance on the relation- Auden’s ability to write verse. In a BBC documentary
ship between text and music runs contrary to many of on the poet, Stravinsky said that his concern was
history’s great vocal and choral works, but it is unclear not whether Auden would be a good dramatist, but
whether Stravinsky considered himself a revolutionary whether his verse would be flexible enough to withon the subject. Choral music makes up a significant stand metrical variation.7
Taruskin explains that the incorrect accentuations
portion of Stravinsky’s output, and, for the most part,
in folk music (which “arise from the forcing of refractory words into an overriding metrical pattern”) and
the lack of connection between the sounds and their
Kevin Zakresky is the Choirmaster at Chatham Hall School in
textual meaning inspired Stravinsky most in his new
Chatham,Virginia <kzakresky@chathamhall.org>
style.8 The text in Stravinsky’s vocal compositions,
9
Stravinsky’s Choral Works continued
thus, often begins as pure phonetic material for the composer, forced into his musical
phrases as in so many strophic folk songs (of
any language) that inevitably feature a deviation from their regular poetic meter. (Think
of the second stanza of the Coventry Carol:
Herod the King in his ra-GING).
A syllable, rather than a word, now
becomes the basic unit of Stravinsky’s text
settings. This was the case especially in his
early faux-folk work Les Noces. Stravinsky
considered Les Noces more a divertissement
or masquerade than an oratorio or ballet: “It
was not my intention to reproduce the ritual
of peasant weddings, and I paid little heed to
the ethnographical considerations.”9 When
describing Les Noces, Stravinsky likened
it to Joyce’s Ulysses, explaining that both
works try to present the material rather
than describe it.10
It is the rejection of narrative text in Les
Noces that is so characteristic of Stravinsky’s
choral compositions.The “plot” of Les Noces
is extremely loose: it is not the story of a
wedding, but a representation of the various sounds associated with one. Stravinsky
admits that Les Noces is an imitation of a
tradition of wedding celebrations which
he had, in fact, never even witnessed.11
There are no actual folk songs in the piece
(although many of the melodies are meant
to evoke this style), and Stravinsky makes
every effort to avoid the predictability of folk
music, thus keeping any one folk-like melody
from assuming the role of a leading motive.
Even the worker song that he quotes in the
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Department of Harvard University seek candidates for
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dca.harvardarts.org
for job description and how to apply
10
fourth tableau is obscured to the point of
being only barely recognizable.
To comprise his text, Stravinsky takes
various quotations from literature with
wedding scenes (mainly from Pushkin) and
integrates them with simple folk legends associated with wedding ceremonies.The first
tableau is the representation of sounds one
would expect to hear at the bride’s house
before the wedding, and the second tableau
the groom’s. The third is loosely labeled “Le
départ de la mariée” or “The Bride is on her
way,” and, because of the fragmentary nature
of the text, is altogether incomprehensible
as poetry. Tableau four, the wedding feast, is
where chaos reigns. Stravinsky’s ordering of
the text layers half-heard conversations, bits
of traditional wedding behaviors, nonsense
syllables, brief asides, toasts, and legends. At
one point, inebriated guests recount two
folk legends (the tale of the red berries and
the story of the lost golden ring) simultaneously. At another, the entire company shouts
“Soup!” without any sort of context. (We are
to assume that dinner had already started by
that point.) As an example of the layering of
party conversations, consider this section of
the piece, set in the order shown in Table 1.
It is Stravinsky’s reconstruction—deconstruction?—of these wedding “sounds” that
removes him enough from the realm of the
oratorio or cantata to be able to compose
purely absolute vocal music.
Such an approach to “dramatic” music
makes any characterization of the soloists
or chorus impossible. Soloists in Les Noces
do not represent characters, but merely the
voices of characters. According to Stravinsky, “individual personalities did not, could
not, emerge.”12 The soprano soloist, in the
opening tableau, has a melody that associates
her with the role of the bride. Later she represents the voice of the goose. The fiancé
is first represented by the tenor soloist, and
later by the bass.The fact that Stravinsky has
all of the singers and musicians on stage, in
evening wear, alongside the dancers, in traditional Russian costume, also supports his
concept that Les Noces is not the presentation of a wedding, but a presentation of the
sounds of a wedding.
The text setting in Les Noces is representative of Stravinsky’s other choral works
Table 1 Example of Text Layers in Tableau Four
Baritone and Tenor solos:
Soprano solo:
Baritone solo:
Chorus:
Baritone solo:
Tenor solo:
And you, Nastassia, what have you been wearing?
I have donned a golden belt with strands of pearls hanging to the ground.
O drinker, drunkard, Nastassia’s Father!
You have sold your child for a goblet of wine.
For a goblet of wine, for a honey drink.
Bride’s Maids, get moving. Go, give away the bride. The Groom is getting bored.
insofar as most of its syllabic and rhythmic
interest is created by altering natural speech
accents. Les Noces provides an excellent
example of how Stravinsky is able to strip
language down to its phonetic elements.
Taruskin explains that Stravinsky’s “prosody
takes as its alpha and omega the metrical/
accentual structure of the text.”13 The choral
and solo lines are full of ostinato patterns
and text repetitions that break down the
words’ meanings so much that phrases
become nothing more than a string of nonsense syllables. Figure 1 shows an excerpt
from the first tableau in which the women
of the chorus chant in quick succession the
following text:
I comb, I will comb Nastassia’s tress.
I comb, I will comb Timfoveena’s fair red hair.
And again, I will comb.
Stravinsky’s setting, with its irregular meter,
constant repetition of the same note and
sheer speed, turns this stanza of perfectly
understandable words into an avalanche of
phonemes.
Later, in tableau 4 (Figure 2), Stravinsky
dispatches with repetition of syllables and
simply writes in nonsense syllables for the
background voices at the party (“Lyoo,
Lyoo” being the Russian equivalent to “Blah,
Blah”). While the sopranos in the chorus
continue the legend of the red berries, the
other three voices, portraying the hubbub
of the wedding party, sing these cascading
strings of nonsense syllables that culminate in
a tutti “Oi,” probably a celebratory drinking
noise —one can imagine it accompanying
the raising of glasses or beer mugs. Most
interesting in this passage is the tenor part,
containing the “lyoo, lyoo” nonsense syllables
with extra words tacked on the end (“Sobokee,” meaning dog or “koseeva,” which is a
woman’s surname). Stravinsky intends these
utterances to emerge as random words one
hears through the din of the celebration.
Daniel Albright, in his article “Stravinsky’s
Assault on Language,” calls the conversation
snippets in the fourth tableau “worthless
cubist reconstructions.” His argument is that
Stravinsky dehumanizes the poetry and the
Figure 1
11
Figure 2
12
voice, creating a medium where words are
not important.14 Stravinsky would not object
to this characterization of his text setting
in Les Noces. His intention was, indeed, to
dehumanize the vocal lines so he could write
music free from textual connotation or narrative suggestion.The lack of individual music
for both chorus and soloists is another part
of Stravinsky’s plan to eliminate any sense of
characterization in Les Noces.
Stravinsky’s avoidance of the dramatization of the text in Les Noces was echoed later in Oedipus Rex, an opera/oratorio that is
not so much acted as displayed.The narrator
in the piece, a spoken role, is the only character on stage that moves. In fact, the narrator
exists only so the characters in the drama
need not act themselves. Stravinsky explains
“the people in the play relate to each other
not by gestures but by words.”15 As in Les
Noces, the composer also had a number of
opinions about the staging of Oedipus Rex.
For instance, one of his first impulses about
the visual representation of the work was
that the chorus should not have a face.16 In
Oedipus Rex, Stravinsky invented a genre of
musical theatre that puts
text declamation first and
Figure 3
detaches the actors from
the very words they are
singing.
It was not by chance
that Stravinsky should
choose to set a Latin
translation of a French
adaptation of an ancient
Greek play. The decision
to reject the Greek language was based on
his own ignorance of it, but the decision to
reject the French version was based purely
on aesthetic grounds. Stravinsky was driven
by the idea that a text for this music might be
endowed with a certain monumental character through a further translation back into
a “sacred” language.17 In his autobiography,
the composer remarks:
What a joy it is to compose music
to a language of convention, almost
of ritual, the very nature of which
imposes a lofty dignity! One no longer
feels dominated by the phrase, the
literal meaning of the words.18
The choice of Sophocles’ play also freed
the composer from being obliged to tell
the story through the music. With such a
well-known play as Oedipus Rex, Stravinsky
could work almost entirely on musical dramatization, leaving all narrative (and physical)
dramatization to the imaginations of the
viewers.19
Stravinsky suffered much criticism over
his irregular text setting in Oedipus Rex,
though he never denied that, in many
instances, he altered the text stresses to
accommodate his musical phrasing. As with
Les Noces, his text setting in Oedipus uses the
syllable as its basic unit rather than the word.
He explains that his text setting “must break
every rule, if only because Latin is a language
of fixed accents and I accentuate freely according to my musical dictates.”20 Compared
with Les Noces, however, Oedipus Rex takes
far fewer liberties with the text stresses. In
fact, most of the piece adheres to traditional
Latin text inflection. For instance, the “Delie,
expectamus” chorus is entirely set with the
correct text stresses.
Stravinsky deviates from the text stresses
in Oedipus Rex in three principal ways. The
first of these occurs whenever he repeats a
word of the text without break, causing the
speech rhythms of the second iteration to
fall outside the musical, metric stresses. This
can be seen in the repetitions of the words
“incolit” and “deferre” in Oedipus’ “Non
reperias” aria (Figures 3 and 4).
The second type of deviation occurs
Figure 4
13
Figure 5
whenever Stravinsky puts an accent on the
last syllable of a word (usually an unstressed
syllable in Latin). The most memorable instances of this would be the phrases using
the words “clarissi-ME” and “keke-DIT” in
Tiresias’ aria and the repetitions of the word
“oracu-LA” in Jocasta’s (Figure 5).
Finally, Stravinsky alters the text when he
sets all syllables with equal weight. NumerFigure 6
14
ous examples of this occur in the “Laudibus
regina Jocasta” chorus (Figure 6).
Taruskin observes that this practice of
setting every syllable with notes of equal
duration occurred first for Stravinsky in his
third setting of the Pribaútki songs of 1914.
In that particular setting, every syllable, with
one exception, is set either as an eighth note
or two-slurred sixteenths.21
The autonomy of music from textual
concerns in Les Noces and Oedipus Rex can
also be seen in Stravinsky’s choral works with
sacred texts. It was in the realm of sacred
music that Stravinsky, with his three early
church Slavonic pieces written between
1926 and 1934 (Otsche nash, Simvol verï,
and Bogoroditse devo), developed his characteristic style of text setting. These three
early pieces, a product of his time in Nice,
were a reaction to what he considered the
“sentimental expression and harmonic and
melodic banalities of the musical services”
of the local Russian church.22 These pieces
are strict homophonic settings that do not
color the texts or attempt to present them
with any sense of drama. Taruskin calls the
Simvol verï (Credo) a “typical impersonal
bit of Stravinskian ritual music…devoid of
dynamic or expression marks of any kind.”23
Stravinsky’s rejection of the “sentimental” in sacred music was brought to an
extreme in his Symphony of Psalms of 1930.
With his settings of the psalms, Stravinsky had what he called an “eagerness to
counter the many composers who had
abused these magisterial verses as pegs for
their own lyrico-sentimental ‘feelings’.” 24
Figure 7
As in his other vocal works (sacred and
secular), here, too, he chooses to use the
syllable as basic
unit and not the
word: “In setting
the words of
the final hymn, I
cared above all
for the sounds of
the syllables and
I have indulged
my besetting
pleasure of regulating prosody in
my own way.”25
Str avinsky
takes many
more liber ties
in altering the text stresses here than in
Oedipus Rex. Some examples might include
the shift of the metric accent on the word
“LAU-da-te” at the beginning of the third
movement (Figure 7), or the accenting of
the word “et” (and) in numerous places
throughout the work (Figure 8). Where
most composers would set this word as an
anacrusis, Stravinsky frequently uses it at the
beginnings of bars.
As with the Latin setting in Oedipus Rex,
Stravinsky at times assigns equal weight and
accent to whole strings of words (part of the
power of the first movement). His setting of
the phrase “Deo no-STRO” in the second
movement, for instance, highlights the final
syllable by placing it on a strong beat (Figure
9), a stylistic trait that would later become
a common feature in the text setting of
Stravinsky’s Mass.
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CHORAL STUDY AT THE CONSERVATORY
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15
Figure 8
Figure 9
Figure 10 shows the first three bars of
the Credo from the Mass after the incipit,
and the immediate and forceful nature of
the last syllable of the word “om-ni-poten-TEM.”
The Mass, written between the years
1944 and 1948, was Stravinsky’s most
important choral work intended for
liturgical use. One theme that constantly
emerges in both Stravinsky’s writings
and interviews is his belief that music
should merely present the text and not
attempt to convey any sort of textual
meaning. In this regard, Stravinsky should
have, for example, allied himself more
with Haydn and Mozart, two composers who more often than not used the
mass text as a vehicle for a presentation
of musical form rather than as a representation of textual meaning. Stravinsky
notes, however, that his major inspiration
for composing his Mass was his dislike
for some of Mozart’s masses, which he
first heard in 1942, characterizing them
as “rococo-operatic sweets-of-sin.”26
Even though Mozart’s Salzburg masses,
which conform to the strict guidelines of
Archbishop Colloredo, show little rela-
Figure 10
The RAYMOND W.
BROCK
Memorial Student Composition Contest
The application and contest guidelines
are available at <www.acda.org/brock>.
Application Deadline:
October 1, 2009.
16
tionship between text and music,
Stravinsky still finds no value in them
as works of liturgical choral music.
This is an intriguing contradiction to
Stravinsky’s lifelong objection to the
separation of text and music.
With regards to the Mass of
1948, he follows his own rules to
the letter. Stravinsky’s basic unit of
composition, again, is the syllable
rather than the word, and his setting
eschews all sense of textual representation. Traditionally, composers
of masses take advantage of certain
narrative passages in the Credo as
a source of inspiration (“et sepultus
est,” “et ascendit,” or “crucifixus”),
but Stravinsky’s setting deliberately
avoids any type of musical reference.
The “Crucifixus” section begins on
a repeated major-seventh chord,
the sound of which is much more
consonant than the preceding orchestral sonorities (Figure 11).
Contrary to the immediate message of the text, the musical effect
is one of polite repose. Stravinsky
maintains uniformity in his Credo
Figure 11
A contest created in an effort
to promote choral music
and ensure its future
by showcasing the
talent of young compopsers
across the country
setting: most of the movement is set syllabically and pulsed homophonically in the
style of a fauxbourdon. The prevalence of
“tune-free” chanting in this movement is
characteristic of the entire Mass, as is the
lack of rhythmic variety. Stravinsky tends to
alter the rhythmic patterns only at cadences,
a procedure that links his Mass more with
medieval plainchant than Renaissance polyphony.
Though Stravinsky never admitted it,
either in his writings or interviews, his position on the relationship between text and
music was quite revolutionary, especially at
a time when Wagner’s synthesis of the two
continued to hold so much sway. Critics
17
often say that Stravinsky merely uses his
texts as vehicles for his own musical ideas.
This is not necessarily the case. In Stravinsky’s
choral works, we can see vocal music that
has value beyond its ability to represent its
text. His style of vocal composition, in which
neither music nor text is subordinate to the
other, does not diminish the text, but, in a
way, allows for limitless interpretations of
its meaning.
NOTES
1
Igor Stravinsky, Poetics of Music in the Form of
Six Lessons (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1970), 59.
2
Ibid.
3
Richard Tar uskin, “Stravinsky’s ‘Rejoicing
Discovery’ and What It Meant: In Defense
of His Notorious Text Setting,” in Stravinsky
Retrospectives, eds. Ethan Haimo and Paul
Johnson (Lincoln and London: University of
Nebraska Press, 1987), 196.
4
Igor Stravinsky and Robert Craft, Expositions and
Developments (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday,
1962), 121.
5
Igor Stravinsky and Robert Craft, Dialogues
(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of
California Press, 1982), 22.
6
Stravinsky, Poetics of Music, 42.
7
Igor Stravinsky, “The Composer’s View,” in The
Rake’s Progress, ed. Paul Griffiths (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1982), 3.
8
Richard Taruskin, “Stravinsky’s ‘Rejoicing Discovery’,” 174–75.
9
Igor Stravinsky, An Autobiography (New York: W.W.
Norton, 1962), 106.
10
Stravinsky and Craft, Expositions and Developments, 115.
11
Ibid., 105.
12
13
Richard Taruskin, Stravinsky and the Russian
Traditions (Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press, 1996), 1357.
14
Daniel Albright, “Stravinsky’s Assault on Language,”
Journal of Musicological Research 8 (1989), 263.
15
Stravinsky and Craft, Dialogues, 23.
16
Ibid.
17
Ibid., 21.
18
Stravinsky, Autobiography, 128.
19
20
Ibid., 30.
21
Richard Taruskin, “Stravinsky’s ‘Rejoicing Discovery’,” 185–86.
22
Igor Stravinsky and Robert Craft, Themes and
Episodes (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966),
31.
23
Taruskin, Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions, 1619.
24
25
Ibid., 46.
26
Works Cited
Albright, Daniel. “Stravinsky’s Assault on Language.” Journal of Musicological Research 8 (1989): 259–79.
Stravinsky, Igor. An Autobiography. New York: W.W. Norton, 1962.
————. “The Composer’s View.” In The Rake’s Progress, ed. Paul Griffiths, 2-4. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1982.
————. The Poetics of Music in the Form of Six Lessons. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1970.
Stravinsky, Igor, and Robert Craft. Dialogues. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1982.
————. Expositions and Developments. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1962.
————. Themes and Episodes. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1969.
Taruskin, Richard. Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1996.
————. “Stravinsky’s ‘Rejoicing Discovery’ and What It Meant: In Defense of His Notorious Text Setting.”
In Stravinsky Retrospectives, eds. Ethan Haimo and Paul Johnson, 162– 99. Lincoln and London:
University of Nebraska Press, 1987.
18
Horace Clarence Boyer
1935 – 2009
Horace Clarence Boyer is a graduate of BethuneCookman University in Daytona Beach, Florida,
and held a masters and doctorate from the Eastman School of Music. His teaching career included
tenures at Albany State College, the University of
Central Florida at Orlando, and the University of
Massachusetts, where he taught from 1973 to 1999.
As a gospel performer, he traveled into 40 states.
Additionally, he served as a lecturer and clinician
on gospel music and the African American Sacred
tradition. One of the highlights of his career was being named as Curator of Musical Instruments at the
National Museum of American History, Smithsonian
Institution. During his residency at the Smithsonian,
he also served as Distinguished Scholar-at-large of
the United Negro College Fund where his duties
included directing the Fisk Jubilee Singers. Boyer's
research resulted in the publication of 40 articles
in the Music Educators Journal, the New Grove Dictionary of American Music, the Black Music Research
Journal, and Black Perspectives in Music. He is the
author of How Sweet The Sound: The Golden Age of
Gospel Music, published in 1995. In recognition of
his teaching and contributions to music, Boyer was
named a Chancellor's Distinguished University Lecturer by the University of Massachusetts in 1990 and
was awarded the Chancellor's Medallion. During
his career, he received many citations including the
Martin Luther King Heritage Award and Lifetime
Achievement Awards fromThe Society of American
Music and the Union of Black Episcopalians. The
University of Colorado conferred an Honorary
Doctorate upon him in 1996.
19
The Influence of
Znamenny Liturgical Chant
on the NineteenthCentury
Russian Choral School
A Guide for Performance
Jeffery B. Wall
Jeffery B.Wall is Visiting Lecturer and Director of Choral Activities at Georgia State University, where he
conducts the University Singers, Men’s Choir, and oversees the masters program in choral conducting.
musjbw@langate.gsu.edu
The Influence of Znamenny Liturgical Chant
on the NineteenthCentury Russian Choral School cont.
Introduction
Russia has had a long-standing sacred
music tradition documented in musical
manuscripts from the late eleventh century. Although obvious permutations have
ensued since then, a clear Russian national
voice emerged from these beginnings
through sacred monophonic chant. The
infiltration and influence of the Italianate
and Germanic styles during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, however,
were so profound that the Russian chant
tradition was nearly lost.
The Moscow Synodal Choir was reduced in stature due to the rise of the Imperial Court Chapel during the eighteenth
century. The Moscow Synodal Choir and
Patriarchal Singing Clerics,1 however, attempted to maintain some semblance of
the national chant tradition that would
regain stature in the nineteenth century.
The ancient znamenny chant was largely
saved from Italianate abuses and permutations, but derivations of znamenny chant
morphed into younger forms like Kievian,
Greek, and Bulgarian chant, that were not
so fortunate.
In the late nineteenth century, a Russian
national style began to reemerge in sacred
choral music for the Orthodox Church.
A choral precedent had been set by the
example of the Imperial Court Chapel
Choir, but composers of the nineteenth
century reacted harshly against the Italianate style of music that had permeated
the sacred music for nearly two centuries.
They searched for a compositional style
that would assert the Russian national
voice once again. Many composers found
the catalyst they desired through the use
of znamenny chant as a basis for their
choral compositions.
Znamenny chant had been out of use
for years in Russia proper. Znamenny
chant was written in stolp notation, which
is comprised of staffless neumes used as
ideograms for performance and based
largely on an oral tradition. Since these
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neumes were meant more as a supplemental aid to the oral tradition rather than
for performance purposes, transcription
into modern notation is difficult and large
bodies of znamenny chant have yet to be
transcribed.
Due to the raskol (the schism that split
the Russian Orthodox Church) in the 1650s,
however, there existed a body of the Old Believers called starovery, who had preserved
the orthodox traditions of the unison chant
amidst its neglect in other portions of Russia.
They were guarded from foreign influence
for centuries, exiled to the frontiers and
dense forests of northern Russia.2 While it
is unlikely that znamenny chant underwent
no change within the scope of nearly two
centuries, scholars believe that the chant as
presented by the Old Believers is as close
to the original practices as can be feasibly
expected. 3
The study that follows takes a closer look
at the znamenny chant as it has come down
to us together with two choral compositions
of the nineteenth-century Russian Choral
School. The chant basis allows an alternate
means of approaching these and other Russian choral compositions for conductors
who do not feel comfortable with the Orthodox liturgy or Church Slavonic, but wish
to program this important part of the choral
repertoire in a concert setting. This article
is by no means meant as a comprehensive
guide for authentic performance. For complete interpretive and stylistic authenticity,
further research is advised in the realms of
Church Slavonic and Russian Orthodox liturgy. By looking at select examples, however,
one can more readily recognize areas within
the larger scope of nineteenth-century Russian sacred music, where znamenny chant is
present, and integrate that knowledge as an
impetus for further study, performance, and
more authentic performance practices.
Musical Properties
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Many scholars claim that the chant literature cannot be understood outside its
liturgical function and to attempt to think of
it in aesthetic ways is to strip it from its context and function. This view is held because
the music facilitates a worFigure 1
shipful function in the liturgy, while arousing human
emotion when combined
with the word. As Johann
von Gardner states: “Either
the musical sounds give
emotional coloration to the
logically concrete contents
of the liturgical texts, or the
musical expression arises as
an emotional reaction to the
ideas expressed by the words.”4 It is certainly melodic formulae.
Little concrete knowledge can be detrue that the liturgical aspects and correlating
text of the chant should be studied to gain duced from mere aesthetic descriptions of
full understanding. It is necessary, however, the eight tones, but those trained in the art
to examine the musical aspects as a strictly of Russian liturgical singing in the oral tradiseparate entity. This approach allows one tion are well-versed in them and have the
to ascertain similarities between different glasy memorized for recall. These individuals
znamenny chants, despite textual differences, can recount numerous varied melodies that
may look very similar to the untrained eye.
within the entire body of chant literature.
There are very few similarities between They are also able to recall any melody by
Gregorian chant and znamenny chant name and the glas from whence it came.
because they developed separately with With practice, therefore, one can look at the
distinct musical, textual, and liturgical indi- melodic properties from each glas and begin
vidualities. Gregorian chant was adapted to see the similarities.
Ivan Shaidurov (c. 1600) invented a
early on by the Franks to fit the properties of
system
of cinnabar markings7 in the seveneight modes with a tonic and dominant from
the Greek system. In contrast, znamenny teenth century. Based on his markings and
chant maintained elements of melodic the findings of early theorists, it is clear that
formulae from the Byzantine model. At the a trichord system divided into four registers
most basic level, znamenny chant can be (or accordances) existed. When viewed
characterized as diatonic. As the Greek in full, this system is similar to the Western
the B in the
Byzantine model grew more chromatic, hexachordal system; however,
♮
lowest
register
is
a
B
while
the
B in the
the Russian faction of the Byzantine model
♭
fourth
register
is
a
B
(Figure
1).
remained diatonic throughout the centuThe registers or accordances were called
ries, accommodating Russian sentimentality
and tastes. The Russians, therefore, claim to by the names listed in Figure 1, and each one
have maintained the truest form of chant encompassed the interval of a major third.“It
implanted from Constantinople, despite its was the practice of the old singers to begin
a melody fairly low in the scale and then rise
development on Russian soil.
finally the triple-bright
Znamenny chant is based on eight tones. by degrees, reaching
8
accordance.
”
Sixteenth-century
chant notaThe tones or modes present in Western
tion
was
not
equipped
to
denote
a particular
Gregorian chants do not apply in the same
scale
degree,
but
could
identify
a
specific acway to Russian Orthodox chants. The eight
tones (glasy) in the Russian system are based cordance and where the chant was to begin.
Some other general attributes of znaon a series of melodic formulae. The chant
does not use eight different scales or tonali- menny chant can be assessed within the
ties, but rather a Syrian prototype of melodic given compass presented above. Conjunct
patterns (popefki)5 that recur within a spe- motion was predominant and leaps were
cific tone.6 There is still controversy among rare, except for intervals of fourths or fifths
scholars regarding the identification of these that occurred at cadential points. A specific
chant may be limited in ambitus to the intervallic distance of only a fourth or fifth, but
with variety of patterns within those limits.
The melodies moved generally in relative
half, quarter, and whole-note durations, with
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freedom to sustain half and whole notes
slightly. The half note received the “beat,”
while whole notes usually occurred at ends
of phrases or lines. Eighth notes were rare
in znamenny chant, and no beat was unduly
stressed. Texts were treated in a very reverent fashion. They were devoid of nonsense
syllables used to elongate words as in Russian folk music. There were no repeated
words in the rendering of a text and some
texts were performed in a recitative fashion,
intoned to clearly delineate the meaning of
the words.The chants were controlled melismatically with only two to four notes per
syllable or word as a general rule. The early
chants (the heirmoi), which provide the best
examples, do not contain extended vocal
displays. The above characteristics are common among the greater body of znamenny
chant literature extant today.9
Immeasurable variety was achieved in
znamenny chant through the combinations
of trichords. Despite the constraints of the
scalar compass, the limited ambitus of each
chant, the limitations of unrepeated text, and
keeping the text in strictest solemnity and
reverence, each znamenny chant is quite
different from another. The combination of
trichordal possibilities and the freedom of
rhythmic movement in the chant allow for
a wellspring of artistry and identifiable characteristics. These compositional possibilities
attracted nineteenth-century composers to
the form of chant as a basis for their choral
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24
compositions and notably as a unifying
means towards a Russian national voice in
the midst of foreign cultural invasion.
A Means of Approach
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
(1844–1908)
“Всемирную славу”
[Let Us Praise the Virgin Mary]
“Всемирную славу” [Let Us Praise the
Virgin Mary] is a Theotokion-Dogmatikon10
in the first tone. It is a free arrangement of
znamenny chant. In the subtitle of the manuscript, Rimsky-Korsakov specifies: “Arrangement in demestvenny manner, from great
znamenny chant by N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov.”
Today, scholars refer to demestvenny as derived from the Greek word domestikos [singing master], but back then, it was understood
as the word for “house.” This meaning connotes a freely interpreted “domestic” style of
singing vis-a-vis strict liturgical use. Here, the
term demestvenny should be understood to
mean “freely arranged.”11
Initially, there is an incipit, which is not
present in the chant source. It is, however, included in Rimsky-Korsakov’s arrangement as
a choral recitative introduction on a G-major
chord and the text reads: “Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit.”
This intonation is necessary, as it is in the
original chant tradition and in its respective
liturgical use. The canonarch12 sometimes
intones an incipit to establish the particular
tone. He then leads the singers into the
body of the chant. In Rimsky-Korsakov’s
model, the choral recitative leads into the
rest of the introductory material where the
chant is in the soprano. There is no meter
signature in this choral recitative, allowing for
free rhythmic interpretation and appropriate
inflection of the text.
Beyond the introduction, the first tempo
marking of “Moderato” appears along with
a time signature (Figure 2). Here, the influence of the znamenny chant is unmistakable.
The chant is placed in both the soprano and
the tenor in an open octave. Likewise, the
alto and bass are an octave apart and move
Figure 2
in open thirds and fifths against the chant
melody.This method continues in mm. 1–11.
It highlights the open structure of the sonority and is a simulation of melismatic unison
chant in a choral texture. The cadence at
m. 11 returns all voices to an octave unison
on D.
Though the soprano voice often carries
the chant melody in Rimsky-Korsakov’s arrangement, the chant frequently passes to
other voices. The tenor voice most commonly receives the chant melody either
when the soprano is not singing, when there
is an imitation in the lower voices, or when
combined with the soprano voice at the
octave. The passage of the chant from one
voice to another is the product of inventive
polyphonic techniques and counterpoint.
The degree of influence of znamenny
chant can be determined by examining
where the choral composition deviates from
the chant source. This assists in the assessment of exactly how much influence the
chant held over Rimsky-Korsakov’s compositional processes. It also sheds light on the
ingenious ways that he modified the chant
source to fit his own arrangement.
Though the chant source is used frequently throughout this composition, it is
considered an arrangement because the
chant is used only as motivic material. The
overall form of the composition is based
more on the polyphonic techniques utilized
by Rimsky-Korsakov than on the chant
source. The chant is occasionally paraphrased or it disappears altogether from
the texture.
In addition to rests that are added at
beginnings of phrases to accommodate the
monastic performance practices, RimskyKorsakov also commonly lengthens the
duration of cadential points from half to
whole notes. Aside from these cadential
points, other rhythmic deviations from the
chant show the composer’s ability to modify
set parameters to accommodate his compositional style. For instance, the cadence at
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25
Figure 3
m. 10 is quite remarkable because RimskyKorsakov departs completely from the chant
in order to achieve a unison D in all voices at
m. 11. Prior to this point, the chant melody
can be found in the soprano and tenor
voices. At m. 10, however, the composer
negates the movement found in the original
chant melody by placing a whole note in the
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choral composition (Figure 3).
The composer treats the phrase ending
at mm. 54–59 very differently than he has
in the previous phrases. Instead of merely
elongating the phrase ending, he changes
the whole note from the chant into a
quarter-note prolongation of the previous dyad on beat one and follows it with
a dotted-half resolution by step (Figure 4,
b1). Although lengthening of phrase endings
seems common in performance practice,
melodic ornaments are not. Additionally, m.
59 progresses in quarter notes in stepwise
motion; however, the chant material shows
the initial interval to be a third. One would
expect the choral composition to read as
G- B - B-A, but instead, the upper voices in
unison read as A-B-B-A in a neighboring
figure (Figure 4, b2).
Ascer taining the points of RimskyKorsakov’s choral composition where he
deviated from the chant allows one to see
the degree of influence that the znamenny
chant had on the compositional process.
From the frequency
of like treatments
within the music, it
becomes clear which
deviations are part of
performance practice and which are
the composer’s own
contribution to the
structure of the piece.
Certain elongation of
notes from the chant
source is common at
the onset of some
phrases. However, intervallic and rhythmic
change in peculiar positions as well as complete deviation from
the chant source deserves attention as
the degree of influence is assessed.
In Rimsky-Korsakov’s “Всемирную
славу” [Let Us Praise
the Vir gin Mar y],
there are many additional musical elements
that deserve special attention from a choir
aside from the chant source. Conductors
must bring these elements to the forefront
in rehearsals to achieve a more musical
performance. Not only must the chant be
identified, but also the inventive polyphonic
and harmonic techniques utilized to accommodate the chant must be addressed.
Alexander Kastalsky (1856–1926)
“Дева днесь” [ Today the Virgin]
Alexander Kastalsky studied theory and
composition under Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky
(1840–93), and was associated in some
manner with the Moscow Synodal Choir
from 1887 forward. In 1910, he became
the director of the Synodal School. More
than half his choral compositions are based
on znamenny chant. Kastalsky’s compositions served as creative inspirations that set
compositional precedents for composers
Figure 4
such as Pavel Chesnokov (1877–1944) and
Sergei Rachmaninov (1873–1943) in terms
of setting znamenny chant in choral textures.
Much of Kastalsky’s voice leading stems
from elements found in Russian folk song.
He was the first to incorporate such voice
leadings into sacred music, which provided
a departure from simple harmonizations
of the chant toward a distinctly Russian
style. A characteristic of Kastalsky’s music is
the constant expansion and contraction of
textures where an unimportant voice pops
out and then fades back into a subordinate
role. Frequent pedal tones appear above
and below the cantus firmus chant melody.13
“Kastalsky’s greatest skill, however, lay in passing the chant around from voice to voice in
the course of a work, creating an immense
variety of textures made possible by such
a procedure.”14 These characteristics are
present in “Дева днесь” [ Today the Virgin].
“Дева днесь” is the kontakion of the
feast of Christmas. A kontakion was originally a hymn that consisted of lengthy poetic
stanzas, usually numbering twenty-four. The
most ancient kontakion are ascribed to St.
Romanos the Melodist. This one is now
shortened to only the initial stanza. It is sung
at the Vigil service on Christmas Eve and
during the Divine Liturgy on Christmas Day
after the appointed troparion.15 The kontakion
summarizes the main theme of the festal
celebration.
There are three versions of Kastalsky’s
setting of “Дева днесь.”The first, in the style
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practiced by the Moscow Synodal Choir,
consists of the chant melody placed in the
first soprano and doubled at the octave by
the first tenors. The second version is labeled for large chorus and the counterpoint
is expanded with the chant material passing
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between other voices. The third version is
labeled for small chorus. It is the same as the
previous versions, but reduced to a simplified four-part texture.16 The second version
is used for this study.
In a fully homophonic texture involving
all voice parts at the beginning of a piece,
the znamenny chant material usually begins
in the soprano 1 part; however, the tenor
1 part carries the chant melody in “Дева
днесь” [Today the Virgin]. Many notes are
doubled at the octave by the soprano 2, but
they do not follow the chant material as exactly as the tenor 1 in the first two measures.
It is not until the anacrusis to m. 3 that the
soprano 1 doubles the tenor and fully takes
over the chant melody (Figure 5).
As evident in Figure 5, the interval of
transposition is a major second. Additionally,
Kastalsky does not designate a meter signature, which remains true to the free metric
flow of the znamenny chant source. The
original did include solid bar lines at the ends
of phrases, but these are common in the
Kievian chant notation as well. The dotted
bar lines in this edition are editorial markings
to aid textual accentuation and phrasing.17
There is significant interchange of the
chant melody between the soprano 1 and
soprano 2 throughout, but the alto and
tenor 1 overtake it at the anacrusis to m.
13. The two voice parts are in unison, while
the soprano voices are involved in a descant
above the texture. The tenor 2 harmonizes
fairly consistently at the interval of a third under the chant melody. The bass moves independently, supporting the harmonic texture.
This is a significant moment because of the
texture shift into the lower three voices. It
is also the only transfer of the chant melody
into the alto voice (Figure 6).
At m. 16, the soprano 2 voice reclaims
the chant melody and reinforces its dominance over the other voices. The composer
passes the chant to other voices momentarily throughout the piece, but the soprano
2 part holds it most frequently. The most
interchange of the chant melody occurs between the soprano 1 and 2 voices. It weaves
through the two voices, making it difficult to
identify aurally where the chant material and
Kastalsky’s material diverge.This is a hallmark
Figure 5
of Kastalsky’s music. He does not merely
keep the chant in the uppermost voice, but
masks it in the choral tapestry of his own
chant-like contrapuntal material.
In Kastalsky’s “Дева днесь,” it is difficult
to trace the chant melody and emphasize its
importance to the ensemble in rehearsals
because the chant melody is so interwoven
in the choral tapestry. The chant sometimes
switches without warning to another voice
part and to highlight only the chant melody
demeans the importance of the other voices
set in a type of homorhythmic polyphony.
The other voices are not merely supportive
harmony, but act in a symbiotic relationship
with the chant.
The composer largely maintains the
contour of the chant. The soprano, alto, and
tenor voices move in similar motion much of
the time.The bass is nearly always independent and moves in conjunct motion, yet still
providing harmonic root support.When two
of the upper voices move in unison or at the
octave, however, it is important to highlight
that portion of the chant from the texture.
Kastalsky was not only a master of homorhythmic counterpoint, but also of word
painting.The anacrusis to mm. 13–15 marks
an important place in the composition. As
discussed previously, the chant melody shifts
to the alto and tenor 1 and the texture shifts
into the lower voices.The soprano voices
maintain a descant on a single syllable above
the texture.The soprano 2 voice is static on
F and G while the soprano 1 leaps an octave
G in m. 14. The first stanza of text from St.
Romanos the Melodist is used in this composition. At this point, the text translates
“and the Wise Men journey with a star.”18
The fact that the men’s chorus (assisted by
the altos in unison) carries the brunt of the
texture here implies a significant moment of
word painting as they sing about the Wise
Men. The Star of Bethlehem is represented
by the soprano descant apart from the other
29
voices (Figure 6).
Though Kastalsky was not the first to introduce chant melodies into choral textures,
he was the first to implement it with some
success. The parameters of the Orthodox
Church regarding the intelligibility of the
text limited many composers’ ability to be
creative in setting chant material. Kastalsky
was able to create a full choral texture from
a chant source, however, rather than simply
harmonizing it. He did not use conventional
polyphonic techniques such as canonical
imitation, inversion, and augmentation. Instead, he utilized timbre, register, and melodic
qualities rather than vertical harmony in his
voice leadings.19
The preceding characteristics of the
composer’s music should be brought to the
attention of singers so that they can best
interpret their vocal line. This approach is
especially true in subordinate voices when
they have notes or phrases to bring to the
forefront of the texture. Conductors should
also be aware of the chant melody when
preparing this piece because, although it is
imbedded in the full choral texture, the chant
is the overall structural element. It is also the
Figure 6
30
model for voice-leading and phrasing.
Performance Implications
Few non-Russian-speaking American
conductors feel comfortable enough with
Church Slavonic, modern Russian, or the
extant body of Russian chant literature to
negotiate intensive study in Russian choral
literature. Russian-born choral music scholars are still in disagreement about certain
issues regarding znamenny chant. The stolp
notation and liturgical practices of the Russian Orthodox Church are also foreign to
many American conductors. Despite these
issues, American conductors have much to
gain from the existing scholarship in English
of znamenny chant and nineteenth-century
Russian sacred music.
In rehearsals, conductors should consider playing a recording of the chant in the
monastic tradition by an Orthodox source.
Additionally, non-Russian conductors should
enlist the aide of an aurally transliterated
pronunciation of the text. A word-by-word
translation is also helpful to know musically
what is occurring over specific words. This
type of translation will give performers a
point of reference regarding performance
practice and internalization of the spiritual
and functional aspects of the chant. Conductors should also consider actually placing the
chant on the performance program before
the choral composition, since many primary
sources are now available.
Conclusion
Although various composers used znamenny chant in many different ways, chant
sources provide a musical way to approach
these compositions for conductors uncomfortable with the language barrier. Knowing
the musical properties of the chant and
tracing those properties through respective
choral textures allow American conductors
to approach these pieces through musical
means. That is not to say that a textual approach is not important. On the contrary, it
allows American musicians to see interesting
musical moments and examine more closely
the relationship of those moments to the
associated text.
The amount of music that exists from
accomplished Russian composers that is
rarely performed is remarkable. Many compositions have gone completely unnoticed
by American conductors. Perhaps with
the knowledge that many of these Russian
sacred compositions contain derivations of a
chant source, conductors will explore these
compositions for their own programming
purposes.
NOTES
1
The Moscow Synodal Choir sang in the
The American Choral Directors Association
wouldn’t exist without its members.
We thank You for your support of our organization and the choral art.
AMERICAN
CHORAL
DIRECTORS
ASSOCIATION
The musical properties of znamenny
chant influenced many Russian choral composers. Understanding the degree of this
influence even leads to better understanding of those compositions without a clear
chant derivation.20 The chant tradition was
the catalyst for Russian artistic creativity in
the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries
even among composers with less knowledge
of chant. It is an innate characteristic in the
emergence of a Russian national voice during this time.
31
Cathedral of Dormition in Moscow (the
main cathedral of the Russian Orthodox
Church). The Patriarchal Singing Clerics were
established and ordered under the Russian
patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church.
2
Vladimir Morosan, Choral Performance in PreRevolutionary Russia (Guilford, CT: Musica
Russica, 1986): 38.
3
Primary sources of znamenny chant material
can be found in publications like: Orthodox
Eastern Church, Obikhod notnago pieniia
oupotrebitel’nykh tserkovnykh rospevov
(Moscow: Moscow Synodal Publishing
House, 1979) or the Obikhod of the Valaam
Monastery.
4
Johann von Gardner, Russian Church Singing,
vol. 1: Orthodox Worship and Hymnography
(Crestwood, NY: St.Vladimir’s Seminary Press,
1980), 23.
5
These popefki are the building blocks of the Eight
Tones that govern the hymnody in the eightweek cycle of the Proper and a few hymns
from the Ordinary.
6
Alfred Swan, “The Znamenny Chant of the
Russian Church—Par t II,” The Musical
Quarterly 26, no. 3 (July 1940): 370–71.
7
A red, mercuric sulfide used as pigment.
8
Swan, 367.
9
Ibid., 367–69.
10
A hymn in honor of the Virgin Mary that contains
dogmatic teaching concerning the incarnation
and dual nature of Christ.
11
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov:
The Complete Sacred Choral Works, ed.
Vladimir Morosan (Madison, CT: Musica
Russica, 1999), 323.
12
According to Vladimir Morosan in Choral
Performance in Pre-Revolutionary Russia, a
canonarch is one whose duties included
“ensuring that the readings and hymns
were performed in the proper order
and determining the melody and style
of performance (soloistic, antiphonal,
responsorial, etc.) in which a given hymn
would be sung.”
13
Alexander Kastalsky, Today the Virgin, Sacred Op.
7b (N.p.: Musica Russica, 1993).
Morosan, Choral Performance in Pre-Revolutionary
Russia, 233.
15
Much like the Roman antiphon with the repetition
of a refrain, the troparion is based on poetic
text rather than biblical text.
16
Morosan, Notes to Today the Virgin.
17
Ibid.
18
Kastalsky, Today the Virgin, 7.
19
Boris Asaf ’ev, Kharakternye osobennosti iskusstva
Kastal’skogo and Khorovoe tvorchestvo
Kastal’skogo in Dmitri Zhitomirsky, ed., A.D.
Kastal’sky: Vospominaniia, stat’i, materialy
(Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe Muzykal’noe
Izdatel’stvo, 1960), 13–16.
20
see Alexander Gretchaninoff ’s Gladsome Light,
Op. 23, No. 2.
14
Children’s Choir Conductor’s Retreat
University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music
January 16-17, 2010
Join fellow directors and teachers from across the country for a unique retreat aimed to support the work of colleagues and
nurture conductors/educators new to the children's choir profession.
Attendees will:
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Collaborate in the spirit of cooperative sharing
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Network with conductors across the country
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Participate in problem solving
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Mentor young conductors and each other
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Attend a CSO performance of Carmina Burana under the direction of Paavo Jarvi
•
Attend presentations by Chorus America, featuring Barbara Tagg and Ann Meier Baker
•
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Additional Presenters include: Angela Broecker, Ruth Dwyer, Judith Herrington, Christy Elsner, Catherine Sailer,
and ACDA Executive Director, Tim Sharp
Early registration discounts before November 15. Applications to conduct in a Masterclass will be sent via email after receipt of paid registration.
Registrations materials available at http://acda.org/repertoire/children%27s_choir.
For questions, contact Robyn Lana at lanarr@uc.edu.
Hosted by the Cincinnati Children’s Choir,
Ensemble-in-Residence at the University of Cincinnati
32
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33
Patrick K. Freer
When asked by a local reporter to elaborate on a statement that half the art of
teaching is procedure, the late author Frank
McCourt replied, “It took me 15 years to
begin to feel comfortable in the classroom.
It takes a while to develop your own style,
an unconscious philosophy of teaching,
personality, strategies for different kids.”1 In
this simple statement, McCourt alluded to
the relationship between the philosophy
and practice of teaching. Although this relationship has been repeatedly examined at
length and in detail, it is a relationship that
remains at the center of nearly all conversations about music, conducting, and teaching.
McCourt’s brief comment includes the
phrase “unconscious philosophy of teaching” that he equates with the style of teaching, or the techniques and strategies that
are most resonant with or effective in specific combinations of teachers and students.
And yet, his use of the word “unconscious”
suggests that the underlying philosophy of
teaching is frequently unspoken or without
thought. The other-than-conscious foundational philosophy of choral conductors is
a concern for all invested in the future of
amateur choral ensembles in schools, universities, churches, and communities. If, as
Patrick K. Freer is associate professor of choral music
education in the School of Music at Georgia State University
where he conducts the university Women's Choir. He is an
active conductor of middle school all-state and honor choirs.
pfreer@gsu.edu
McCourt suggests, unvoiced philosophies
can be made evident through teaching
style, it would be incorrect to assume that
the practice of choral conductors lacks a
philosophical grounding. Rather, the need
to discuss the philosophical may seem less
important than how that philosophy is realized through practice.
The terms we use to describe our roles
as choral leaders reflect both the conditions of and our philosophies about our
work, whether we choose those terms
consciously or not. Those of us who serve
as pre-Kindergarten–12 school personnel
are primarily music teachers who instruct
through choral music.The term “choral music teacher,” therefore, best describes the
responsibilities of these conductor/teachers.
In pre-Kindergarten to 12th grade settings,
teaching and conducting are intertwined
such that there is no justifiable distinction
between the two. In the broader view of
choral music, however, the term “choral
conductor” speaks to the larger art form,
encompassing both the educational needs
of the singers and the musical interests
of composers and repertoire. Use of the
term “choral conductor” implies service to
singers—the choral ensemble—as well as
to composers and repertoire—the choral
music.
The elements that bridge these two
components, the singers and the music,
constitute the choral experience. Conduc35
Beyond Error Detection
tors, by definition, deeply influence the
choral experience of singers through their
implementation of philosophy and facility
with pedagogical skills, in combination with
the musical perception of the choristers.
Some conductors intuitively blend philosophy with pedagogy such that some of the
most profound moments within the choral
experience appear to occur spontaneously.
All conductors, however, make a variety of
conscious decisions that either promote
or discourage the conditions within which
optimal choral experiences can occur. This
article focuses on one of those conscious
efforts: the giving of feedback to choral
singers during rehearsal. This feedback from
conductor to choir encompasses elements
of the spoken word, vocal modeling, and
non-verbal cues such as facial expressions
or pre-arranged signals.
The Design of Rehearsals
and Rehearsing
Choral music is an art form people listen
to, study, sing, feel, and conduct. It can be
thought of as a noun and a verb. In a Choral
Journal interview some time ago, the music
education philosopher David Elliott spoke of
singing—a verb—as a demonstration of musicianship—a noun. In Elliott’s words, singing
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is “musical knowing-in-action.”2 Similarly, the
classic philosophical riddle, asking whether a
falling tree makes sound if no one can hear
it, might be reframed to ask whether choral
music exists if there is no one to sing it. The
music might exist as an object, but it is the
transformation of the music through human
bodies that brings forth an experience of
choral music.
Within this framework, conductors who
think of choral music as something people
do might consider themselves as primarily in
service to the singers. In contrast, conductors
who view choral music as encompassing
composition and performance-as-product
might consider themselves as primarily in
service to the music. Conductors who focus
on the participatory aspects of choral music
will give substantially different feedback to
choristers than will conductors for whom
music-as-object is preeminent. The reality is
that these views are not mutually exclusive,
and conductors likely hold both views in a
fluid proportion that reflects the unique
contexts of individual rehearsals or performances.
Which view is more conducive toward
effective rehearsing? Some answers may be
found in the words of esteemed conductors who have constructively negotiated
between the boundaries of both views. For
instance, one chapter in the book In Quest
of Answers: Interviews with American Choral
Conductors presents the responses of many
choral conductors to a question about the
primary objectives of their choral programs.3
Joseph Huszti responded by linking elements
of his philosophy and practice:
My philosophy is pretty simple. I
want to give my students a musical
experience upon which they
continue to grow as musicians and
as persons. My approach is both
intellectual and emotional. I want the
singers to understand what is in the
score. I want them to sing so that they
are aware of what it is to create an
ensemble. I try to give them musical
know-how so that they can leave the
university situation and be able to
survive musically as individuals. We
must arm our singers with tools
enabling them to continue their
growth as artists.4
In his response, Huszti epitomized the
views of conductors for whom choral music
is an experiential process made satisfying by
an ever-increasing combination of musical
skills and knowledge. It is the conductor/
teacher’s responsibility to craft each moment
within rehearsals—and across multiple rehearsals—to provide singers with a carefully
sequenced progression of musical encounters that matches the challenges of repertoire with the skills of the choristers. Even so,
choruses are comprised of individual singers
who respond and react uniquely, leading to
multiple choral experiences rather than the
choral experience.
Reflecting on the nature of musical experience, conductor, teacher, and philosopher
Estelle Jorgensen wrote,
The human dimensions of music
education are just as important as
the material to be learned and taught
and cannot be separated from it . . .
The word experience is understood
here in the deep sense of a profound
impact on the person, one that is
practical and relevant to the needs
and interests of student, teacher, and
public alike; perceived as significant by
the individual undergoing it . . . Music
education comes alive when learners
view knowledge as relevant to their
lives; within their powers to grasp;
challenging, inspiring, and encouraging
them to move beyond past attitudes,
abilities, and attainments.5
Matching the challenges posed by choral
music with the skills of the singers reflects
a delicate, ever-changing equation. On the
one hand, choral repertoire is likely to be
rehearsed for several months prior to a
concert. Conductors need to predict that
the choir will be able to successfully perform
the selections on concert day, even though
the singers may begin the rehearsal process
unable to successfully sing any portion of
the repertoire. On the other hand, each successive rehearsal yields to the next in close
enough proximity that effective conductors
can accurately adjust the pedagogy to meet
the needs of both the music and the singers.
If the conductor is too focused on music
as object, the most carefully developed
rehearsal plans may be quickly abandoned
when the singers’ efforts fall short of the
idealized final product. This falling short
frequently occurs in rehearsals led by young
conductor/teachers who stop to address
every incorrect issue they detect, whether
pitch, rhythm, pronunciation, or vocal production. At the other extreme, there are
conductors who may be reticent to address
these technical issues for fear of squelching
the positive experience of their singers.
Conductors with a more balanced view are
able to see how immediately addressing a
technical issue may lead toward a better
singer experience and how postponing another technical adjustment may be a more
suitable decision.
Appropriate balance and timing of these
decisions usually come with experience.
Conductors and singers may otherwise
sense that rehearsals are merely searches
for errors, haphazardly designed, or without
overarching plans. Rehearsal plans are abandoned (if there were lesson plans to begin
with), and the pacing of rehearsals becomes
more rapid. In these instances, conductors
often detect an error, give singers something
to do in response, and, rather than comment
on the singers’ efforts, immediately proceed
to address a different error. As researcher
Harry Price noted,
If the teacher star ts the group
by telling them where to begin
(directions) and how to perform
the task (musical task presentation),
has them interact with the task
(performing), and then gives them
feedback that is contingent on their
performance, a constructive rehearsal
environment has been created in
which the students know what is
wanted and how to do it … If the
teacher waits until after an ensemble
starts performing before deciding on
the task, the ensemble members are
essentially deciding rehearsal content
by virtue of their mistakes.6
When conductors allow the errors of
their choristers to determine the content
of rehearsals, they have no choice but to
react to discrepancies between the singers’
efforts and the ideal end product of choral
music. But, when conductors methodically
design the content of their rehearsals based
on long-term plans and knowledge of the
singers’ most recent efforts, they can craft
37
Illustration 1 Cycle of Pedagogical Skills
I. Error Prediction
V. Error Diagnosis
and Analysis
IV. Error Correction
instructional strategies that meet the needs
of choristers and repertoire. A methodical
design must therefore guide each individual
rehearsal micro segment that begins when
conductors request that the choir perform
a task.
Illustration 1, “Cycle of Pedagogical Skills,”
suggests an organizing tool that conductors
can employ to promote rehearsals that
balance the singers’ experience with the
musical integrity demanded by the choral art
form.This cycle was initially developed in my
university choral methods course as a way
38
II. Error Prevention
III. Error Detection
to encourage young conductors to provide
specific feedback to their choristers.
A Cycle of Pedagogical Skills
The phrase “pedagogical skills” firmly
situates the choral conductor as leader and
teacher of the rehearsal. Leading, however,
is not the same as dictating; it need not be
heavy-handed and exclusionary. Leading
choral rehearsals ought to be about guiding
singers from one level of choral experience
to another, more advanced level of experience. Though the singers will likely achieve
that heightened experience because of the
enhanced individual skills they gain during
rehearsals, they will do so in collaboration
with their fellow choral musicians—including
their conductor. Leading rehearsals implies a
plan grounded in an educational and artistic
philosophy that informs each step along the
process of planning and conducting rehearsals. As a macro view, conductors who are
aware of their philosophical stance toward
rehearsing can make decisions about what
to focus on at the address preemptively,
what to focus on at the moment it occurs,
and what can be anticipated for the future.
This macro view, then, informs the manner
in which conductors proceed through the
detailed give-and-take of each rehearsal
session.
The pedagogical cycle begins long before
the planning of any specific rehearsal when
the conductor starts studying the score and
develops an aural image of the composition. During the planning for each individual
rehearsal, the conductor predicts errors that
singers may make based on score analysis
and knowledge of the singers’ level of vocal, musical, and linguistic abilities. Once the
potential errors have been identified, the
conductor designs a warm-up sequence to
preemptively address these issues. This is an
effort to provide singers with knowledge
and skills to handle specific problem spots
as they arise within the repertoire.This stage
of error prevention may require a sequence
of skill development that spans multiple rehearsals, depending upon the complexity of
the concepts or vocal techniques presented
in the repertoire.
During the rehearsal, the conductor
vigilantly detects the errors that occur, both
those that were anticipated and any others
that arise. The conductor prioritizes among
these to ensure that the correction of errors
does not move the rehearsal away from
the plans and goals that were established
during the initial planning phase. The cycle
concludes as the conductor diagnoses the
problems that occurred during rehearsal,
determines whether there were underlying,
undetected issues that prompted the errors,
and analyzes the information for how to best
proceed in subsequent rehearsals. The cycle
begins anew as plans that reflect the analysis
are developed for the ensuing rehearsal.
In the paragraphs that follow, each skill in
the cycle is illustrated by a narrative depiction of how that skill might look in practice.
The simulated pedagogical sequence takes
place in the classroom of Mr. Jamaal Ellis. Jamaal is the choral music teacher in an urban
high school.The well-established choral program includes an eighty-voice choir of freshmen and sophomores for which Jamaal has
programmed Mack Wilberg’s arrangement
of Shenandoah (Oxford University Press).
The arrangement of this popular American
folksong was chosen because of its long,
legato vocal lines, divisi that creates unusual
harmonies, dramatic use of crescendos and
decrescendos, and the fact that each student
sings the melody in its entirety. Finally, the
SATB voice parts in Wilberg’s arrangement
reflect the multiple vocal ranges of the adolescent students in the choir.
begins by sequencing his warm-up so that
relaxation leads to proper physical alignment.
This is followed by exercises focused on
breath management, with specific attention
to the muscular processes involved during
sustained exhalation.
At the end of the warm-up session,
Jamaal revisits these breathing exercises as
he leads students in singing phrases of the
Shenandoah melody that he has notated on
Error Prediction
Jamaal introduced Shenandoah to the
choir during yesterday’s rehearsal by playing a recording, analyzing the compositional
form, and having students discuss the musical
challenges posed by the arrangement.Two of
the student-identified challenges related to
breath management: (1) the sustained legato
lines of the melody and, (2) the crescendo at
the exact midpoint of the arrangement.The
teacher senses that breath management will
be most easily handled by working through
the unison melody rather than at the point
of the crescendo where voice parts contain
different pitches. With this information in
mind, Jamaal decides to build his warm-up
vocalises around excerpts of the melody,
incorporate breaths as they occur in the
octavo, and then immediately transition from
warm-up to repertoire by having students
find and mark the corresponding required
breaths in their scores.
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Error Prevention
Based on his predictions of where singers might make errors, Jamaal designs his
warm-up procedures to mitigate against
the chances that those errors will occur. He
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the board, with inhalations occurring where
they will be marked in the score. Jamaal further emphasizes the importance of muscular
control during exhalation by having students
come to the board and insert crescendos
and decrescendos that the choir adds to
their singing. Jamaal’s intent for this step is
to prepare an experiential foundation for
work in later rehearsals on the crescendo
students identified at the midpoint of the
arrangement. Once they agree on where
the dynamic markings should occur, students
turn to their octavos and make corresponding notations in the score.
Error Detection
As the rehearsal of Shenandoah begins,
Jamaal returns to the vocalise material by
having students sing those phrases from the
score. He notices that most students are
successful at transferring the breath management techniques from the warm-ups to the
score, except for the tenors. Some tenors
seem to take extra breaths, while others
show signs of vocal tension at the ends of
phrases.The basses raise their chins upward
when singing the first note, the high do, of
the second phrase. Meanwhile, the sopranos
and altos experience slight intonation problems, singing sharp in the opening and ending
phrases, but not in the middle phrases. Jamaal
quickly notes these issues in his score and
ponders his response.
Error Correction
Jamaal has some decisions to make. He
cannot simultaneously attend to each error,
so he decides to begin by correcting the
errors most directly related to the breath
management issues addressed during the
warm-up session. He reminds the choir that
he was listening for two issues: breath management within each phrase, and the marked
crescendos/decrescendos. When prompted,
students indicate that the dynamic contrasts
were more easily performed.
Jamaal further questions, asking students
to identify similarities in the abdominal
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muscular movement needed for breath
management and dynamic control. Students
respond correctly and Jamaal then turns to
the tenors to inquire about their singing/
breathing experience. One tenor says that
he remembered to use his abdominal musculature to assist with dynamic contrasts, but
forgot to do the same elsewhere. After the
tenors nod their heads in collective agreement, Jamaal asks them to sing the phrases
again, with the other singers instructed to
raise their hands if the tenors successfully
sustain the breath as they sing. The choir
responds approvingly to the tenors’ efforts,
and Jamaal congratulates them for solving
the problem.
word “way.”
Jamaal determines that he knows how
to handle the problems encountered by the
sopranos, altos, and tenors, but he needs to
consult his resource library for some ideas
about how to assist the basses. Jamaal begins
Error Diagnosis and Analysis
Jamaal sits at his desk and begins to plan
for tomorrow’s rehearsal. He is a bit concerned because the students made some
errors that he did not anticipate, but he
is pleased that his attempts to predict and
prevent potential errors related to breath
management and dynamics were largely successful. He knows that his goal is to equip
with students with choral skills that they can
use beyond high school, so he wants to ensure that students understand and develop
their musicianship by solving appropriate
musical challenges posed by the repertoire.
Still, there were some errors that remain to be addressed, and these errors will
require students to rely on Jamaal’s professional knowledge and judgment. He recalls
that too much breath pressure can cause intonation problems. Since the sopranos and
altos were only singing sharp on the phrases
with lower pitches, he concludes that they
were simply trying too hard to do what he
had asked. Jamaal also noticed that some of
the ninth-grade tenors were straining to sing
the low do on the first note of the melody,
perhaps distracting them from the inhalation
necessary to sustain the entire first phrase.
He decides to temporarily change the low
do to a high do to alleviate this problem for
the tenors. Meanwhile, Jamaal remembers
that the basses had difficulty singing the high
do. He looks at his score and sees that the
pitch occurs with the initial diphthong in the
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41
to plan tomorrow’s rehearsal by further
examining the score to predict any other
errors the choir might make were he not
to provide them the necessary tools for successful singing. And so, the cycle begins anew.
The Giving of
Appropriate Feedback
If our philosophy is grounded in the
principle that choral music requires human
engagement to breathe musical life into
compositions, then, by extension, the purpose of rehearsals is to provide singers with
the knowledge and skills needed to engage
in choral music experiences throughout their
lives. Rather than the concert two months
away, the goal is enlarged to encompass a
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forthcoming concert two decades away.
What can we do today to help ensure that
our singers will be singing long after they
have left our musical and pedagogical care?
Such a philosophical position may relieve
conductors (and their choirs) of the unproductive stress that accompanies the goal of
musical perfection. This view brings forth a
complexity of purposes as multifaceted as
the diverse individuals within our ensembles.
How do we meet the needs of each individual singer while upholding the musical
considerations of the repertoire? We may
not be able to know each of our singer’s
musical needs or to sufficiently address each
need within the limited time we have with
our ensembles. What we can do is establish
parameters of rehearsal structure that both
nourish our larger goals and allow opportunities for individual singers to identify and
make progress toward their unique goals. As
Graham Welch fittingly stated,
A per son’s physical and social
environment can assist or hinder the
development of any vocal behavior
including that of singing. Research
has demonstrated that the singing
development process may be
significantly influenced by interaction
between the individual and her/
his singing environment. In order
for the individual to become more
accomplished vocally, she/he needs
to be in an environment that fosters
such development. In part, this will be
dependent on the quality of available
feedback.7
The giving of appropriate feedback to
singers is frequently missing from choral rehearsals.8 A recent meta-analytical review of
research concerning instructional feedback
resulted in four important conclusions that
can further inform the pedagogical cycle
described above.9 These conclusions can be
easily applied to the choral rehearsal.
First, feedback needs to provide a link
between what singers currently understand
and what conductors want them to understand. This understanding implicates all skills
in the pedagogical cycle, but most specifically
involves the skills of error prediction and
error prevention. Though these two skills
precede the rehearsal, the outcome is a
specific rehearsal plan (feedback) based on
the choir’s previous work. The late Frauke
Haasemann commented on this concept
in the opening minutes of her Group Vocal
Technique video: “You have to give [singers]
techniques to sing the music right, because
some of the music that even amateur choirs
sing is, in a vocal way, very difficult. You cannot say to [your choir], ‘just do it.’ You have
to give them tools. And, I think that you have
to teach them those tools . . . with exercises
composed [from] the music that they will
later rehearse.”10 A conductor’s effective
feedback—which includes modeling—can
provide singers the tools to be successful
at negotiating vocal challenges posed by the
repertoire.
Second, feedback must be contextualized
to both the singers and the learning situation. Feedback to an ensemble of twelveyear-olds should be qualitatively different
from feedback to an ensemble of university
students, even though the content might be
similar (vowel formation, perhaps). This first
pair of research-based conclusions speaks
to a choral conductor’s feedback that might
develop through stages involving the skills
of error prediction, prevention, detection,
and correction.
A subsequent pair of conclusions focuses
on issues that most directly affect a conductor’s skills employed in the stages that occur
before and after feedback: error prediction,
prevention, and diagnosis/analysis. First, the
feedback of a choral conductor comes after
singers have responded to a task, often
through singing. The implication is that the
initial task request positions the singers for
success or failure. To the extent possible,
the bulk of a conductor’s pre-rehearsal
planning should be toward ensuring success
for the singers by diagnosing and analyzing
what occurred previously, predicting what
errors are likely to occur under the same
circumstances, and then seeking to prevent
the likely errors from occurring.
The final conclusion: feedback is not
always appropriate. Instead, direct instruction may be necessary before singers can
understand the feedback. As stated earlier,
the warm-up segment of choral rehearsals
is a vital component of direct instruction if it
43
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is specifically designed to address vocal and
musical challenges that will arise in that day’s
rehearsal. Once singers have been successfully engaged in direct instruction, the conductor can provide feedback that calls upon
what the singers have already accomplished
as it arises throughout the repertoire.
Conclusion
Whether conscious to us or not, our
philosophies are telegraphed through the
rehearsals we design and the feedback we
provide to our choristers. In the words of
conductor James Jordan, “Why do people
come to sing for you? Not because of your
musicianship or your beautiful conducting
gestures. They come because of you. When
your hands come down, the important thing
is that you care about the choir, not the right
notes or right rhythms.”11
The Cycle of Pedagogical Skills outlined
above is an organizing tool intended to assist
conductors in the development of rehearsal
plans and feedback that are appropriate for
our singers and, hopefully, reflect our philosophical paradigm. Many conductors can
recall rehearsals that just didn’t seem right,
only to later realize that they had temporarily led their singers in a manner inconsistent
with their beliefs about singing, teaching, and
the experience of choral music.
Working with a set of instructional,
musical plans enables conductors to be
transparent about their pedagogy because
they have made deliberate decisions about
their teaching. Such awareness allows freer
discussions with singers about why certain
rehearsal strategies are employed and others will be held for another time. One result
of this instructional transparency: that the
choral experience becomes a collaborative
process more overtly shared by conductor
and singers. Each of us is a participant, both
a giver and receiver of choral artistry, and
our philosophies and instructional goals can
be intertwined to provide opportunities for
all participants to give and receive at everincreasing levels.
NOTES
Adam Tanous, “A Teacher at Heart: An Interview
with Writer Frank McCourt,” Idaho Mountain
Express and Guide, August 30– September 5,
2000. <http://www.mtexpress.com/2000/0830-00/8-30mccourt.htm> (July 31, 2008).
2
David J. Elliott, “When I Sing:The Nature and Value
of Choral Music Education,” Choral Journal 33,
no. 8 (1993): 11–12.
3
Carole Glenn, ed., In Quest of Answers: Interviews
with American Choral Conductors (ChapelHill,
NC: Hinshaw Music, 1991): 172–83.
4
Glenn. In Quest of Answers. 175.
5
Estelle R. Jorgensen, Transforming Music Education
(Bloomington, IN: University of Indiana Press,
2003): 124–25.
6
Harry E. Price, “An Effective Way to Teach
and Rehearse: Research Supports Using
Sequential Patterns,” Update: Applications of
Research in Music Education, 8, no. 1 (1989):
44.
7
Welch, Graham. “The Developing Voice.” In
Bodymind and Voice: Foundations of Lifespan
Voice Education, ed. Leon Thurman and
Graham Welch, 711. Iowa City, IA: National
Center for Voice and Speech, 2000.
8
Patrick K. Freer, “Teacher Instructional Language
and Student Experience in Middle School
Choral Rehearsals,” Music Education Research
10, no. 1 (2008): 107–24; Harry E. Price
and Cornelia Yarbrough, “Effect of Scripted
Sequential Patterns of Instruction in Music
Rehearsals on Teaching Evaluations by
College Nonmusic Students,” Bulletin of the
Council for Research in Music Education 119
(1993): 170 – 78; Cornelia Yarbrough and Paul
Henley, “The Effect of Observation Focus on
Evaluations of Choral Rehearsal Excerpts,”
Journal of Research in Music Education 47
(1999): 308– 18; Cornelia Yarbrough and
Katia Madsen, “The Evaluation of Teaching
in Choral Rehearsals,” Journal of Research in
Music Education 46 (1998): 469–81.
1
John Hattie and Helen Timperley, “The Power of
Feedback,” Review of Educational Research, 77,
no. 1 (2007): 81–112.
10
Frauke Haasemann and James Jordan, Group Vocal
Technique (Video) (Chapel Hill, NC: Hinshaw
Music, 1990).
11
James Jordan. Speech delivered for the music
teachers of Cobb County. Marietta, GA.
October 14, 2005.
9
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1
New Voices in Research
Magen Solomon, editor magensol@usc.edu
Modernism and Byzantine Influence in Rautavaara’s Vigilia, Part One
by
Charles W. Kamm
Introduction
Einojuhani Rautavaara, born October
9, 1928, is considered the dean of living
Finnish composers. His Vigilia is his most
extensive choral work, and one of his most
important. Stylistically, Vigilia well represents
Rautavaara’s eclectic modernist approach
to style. In addition, the work shows the
influence of Rautavaara’s encounters with
Byzantine chant.
This two-part article will begin by outlining Rautavaara’s career. Part One will also
include an overview of Vigilia, a brief history
and stylistic account of the traditional Russian Orthodox Vigil Service, a description of
form in Vigilia, and will explore the modernist musical language of Vigilia. Part Two will
focus on Byzantine influence in the context
of modernism, continuing the discussion of
musical language. It will offer conclusions
about why Rautavaara incorporated Byzantine elements into this modernist work.
Einojuhani Rautavaara
Rautavaara has written many choral
works throughout his career, with over
sixty choral pieces for treble voices, men’s
voices and mixed choir. These works range
from short settings of folk texts to longer
settings of poetry, biblical texts, or liturgical
Charles W. Kamm is assistant
professor of music at Scripps College
and director of choirs for the Joint
Music Program at the Claremont
Colleges.
texts. Larger forms include cycles, cantatas,
and choral operas. Among his best known
choral wor ks
are the popular Lorca Suite
(1973); a Magnificat (1979); a
setting of Rilke’s
first Duino Elegy, Die Erste Elegie (1993); and
Vigilia (1971/72,
revised 1988
Einojuhani Rautavaara
and 1996). He Photo Maarit Kytöharju/FIMIC
is also credited
with eight symphonies, ten concertos, ten
operas, and many works for orchestra,
solo voice, solo instruments, and chamber
ensembles.1
Although Finland is primarily and officially
a Lutheran country, Vigilia is a setting of the
Eastern Orthodox All-Night Vigil in Finnish.
Following the tradition of Eastern Orthodox
church music, it is unaccompanied, scored
for mixed choir and five soloists (soprano,
alto, tenor, bass, and basso profondo). It
consists of two main parts with multiple
internal movements. In its published form,
“Vespers” contains fourteen numbers while
“Matins” has twenty movements. The thirtyfour movements set a variety, but not all,
of the prayer, Psalm, and hymn texts of the
Orthodox All-Night Vigil, retaining the Greek
names of each (katisma, sticheron, ekteniya,
troparion, irmos).
Rautavaara’s Musical Style
When Rautavaara accepted the commission by the Finnish Orthodox Church and
the Helsinki Festival in 1971 to compose
Vigilia, he faced a number of compositional
problems. Chief among these was deciding
what musical language to use. While on the
surface, Vigilia’s musical language is modernist, the work also owes a debt to the traditions of Byzantine chant.
One reason selection of musical language
in Vigilia was challenging for Rautavaara is his
eclectic style. Rautavaara has been described
as a pluralist and is a self-acknowledged stylistic wanderer.2 His earliest works—from
the late 1940s and early 1950s—could
best be classified as neo-classical. Works
from this time include “Three Symmetrical
Preludes” for piano in 1949; A Requiem for
Our Time for brass (a primitavistic work after
Stravinsky’s Les Noces) in 1954; and the first
symphony (stylistically similar to Prokofiev
and some Shostakovich) in 1956.3 Following studies in Finland with Aarre Merikanto,
Rautavaara studied with Persichetti, Copland
and Sessions in New York and at Tanglewood
in 1955 and 1956. The second symphony,
Sinfonia intima, from 1957, is decidedly modernist, Stravinsky-like in fast movements, and
chromatic to the point of atonality. In 1957,
Rautavaara traveled to Ascona, Switzerland,
to study dodecaphony with Wladimir Vogel.
Finnish musicologist Kimmo Korhonen claims
that Rautavaara’s modernist fourth symphony, Arabescata, from 1962 “remains the only
Serial symphony to be written in Finland.”
In the second half of the 1960s, Rautavaara abandoned serialism and began
to compose in a free-tonal style, often
neo-romantic. This style is seen in the cello
concerto from 1968 and also in Vigilia. Later
works incorporate post-modernist features
such as collage (in True and False Unicorn
47
for reciters, chorus, orchestra and tape in
1971), taped elements (birdsong in Cantus
Arcticus, 1972—a concerto for birds and
orchestra), synthesized sounds (in the 1982
concert opera for male choir, soloists, and
tape, Runo 42—the Theft of the Sampo), and
aleatory (again seen in Cantus Arcticus as
well as in Symphony 5 from 1986). Works
from throughout the 1970s, 80s, 90s and the
new century incorporate a variety of compositional techniques and idioms (including
a return to serial elements), and frequently
successive works differ greatly in style. An
important trend in his later works is a preoccupation with the mystic and the mythic.
This is seen in his many works based on the
mythic Kalevala, the national epic of Finland
(such as Runo 42) and in a number of works
48
referencing angels, including his double bass
concerto, Angel of Dusk (1980), and the seventh symphony, Angel of Light (1994).
Vigilia
The setting of the All-Night Vigil was
commissioned by the Helsinki Festival and
by the Orthodox Church of Finland for use
at the Uspenski Cathedral in Helsinki during
the late-summer Helsinki Festival. Although
numbered by the composer as the single
Opus 57, it was composed in two parts,
“Vespers” and “Matins,” and premiered in
two different years, 1971 and 1972.4 The
date of the 1971 premiere of “Vespers”
was August 28, the Feast of the Beheading
of John the Baptist, and thus the proper elements in Vigilia are those for that feast. The
premiere of “Matins” occurred on the Feast
of the Nativity of the Virgin, September 9,
1972, still, however, incorporating the propers from the Feast of the Beheading of John
the Baptist.The premieres were sung by the
Klemetti Institute Chamber Choir, conducted
by Harald Andersén.
In 1988, Rautavaara revised the complete
settings of both “Vespers” and “Matins,” paring down the works, which originally lasted
over two hours, to create a 45-minute concert version titled Vigilia. A later revision in
1996 entailed mainly alterations of tessitura,
including the resetting of many movements
a tone lower, in preparation for publication,
and the recording by the Finnish Radio
Chamber Choir. The 1996 version, lasting 65
minutes, was debuted by the Finnish Radio
Chamber Choir, conducted by Timo Nuoranne, in Helsinki on October 14, 1997, and
released on compact disc by Ondine in 1998.
I have had access to the score of the
1996 version published by Warner/Chappell
Finland and to two differing photocopies
of the 1988 revised manuscript, one held
by the Finnish Music Information Centre
and the other by the Helsinki University
Library. No copy of the unaltered original
1971/72 version has been located. While
Rautavaara has taken care that the original
cannot be reconstructed, it is clear from a
study of the existing manuscripts that in his
1971/72 version, Rautavaara set nearly every
item of Vespers and Matins to music. In the
later concert versions, revisions focused on
cutting many chant-based elements, and
lowering, by a whole tone, a number of
movements that were particularly high in
the soprano voices.
Rautavaara writes that Vigilia has its origins in a childhood visit.
[A]t the age of ten or so, my parents
had taken me to the Or thodox
monastery island of Valamo, now on
the other side of the Russian border
in Karelia. The exotic world of the
monaster y had been a shocking
experience for me, simply through
the very existence of such a different
world—I believe that it created the
foundation for my later conviction
of the existence of different worlds,
different realities and modes of
consciousness. If nothing else, that
experience remained powerfully in
the subconscious: the colours, rituals,
icons, bells, the choirs singing, the song
of the deacon, even the swishing of
the monks’ habits in the darkened
cloisters…5
Rautavaara was captivated by the sensory stimuli of the monastery and the alternate
world it created.The interest in orthodoxy is
an extension of Rautavaara’s preoccupation
with the mystic and the mythic. “When I
had composed an expansive Orthodox
Vigilia…I had basically realized some kind of
personal myth.”6 Indeed, Vigilia is a particuChoral Journal • October 2009
larly personal creation due to its juxtaposition of musical modernism and Byzantine
influences.
Maxim Berezhovsky in Italy.
In the early nineteenth century, the sway
of Italian music gave way to German romantic influence, with chorale-like harmonization
Structure and Musical Language
of the Traditional Finnish Vigil Service
The structure of the Finnish Orthodox
Vigil service closely resembles the Russian
Vigil, which has changed little over the past
three centuries. In both,Vespers and Matins
include a variety of Psalms, hymns, prayers,
litanies, Biblical odes, and responsorial elements.7 Some of these elements are chanted by the priest or by the deacon, some are
sung chorally. Rautavaara’s 1971/72 service
music was a setting of most of the contemporary text of both Vespers and Matins.
Byzantine chant, introduced into Russia
by Greek missionaries in the ninth or tenth
century, was the original musical language of
the Orthodox Vigil service. As the Eastern
Church has always required the use of the
vernacular in its liturgy, the Greek chants
were translated into Old Slavonic, the
root of modern Slavonic languages. From
the eleventh to the sixteenth century, the
repertoire grew, and Russian chant generally
became more intricate, although in times
of reform, less so. By the sixteenth century,
Russian chant featured extended ranges,
larger melodic leaps (including successive
leaps of sixths, sevenths, and octaves),
and more extended melismas. Polyphony
in church music was resisted by the Russian church as a non-orthodox, “Roman”
tradition until the seventeenth century.
The earliest examples of polyphony in the
Russian church date from the sixteenth
century, and show the influence of a folk
tradition of polyphonic singing. Only during
the last part of the seventeenth century did
church polyphony become prevalent. Styles
included three- and four-voice homophony
as well as polyphony and polychoral writing
on the German and Italian models. Settings
of chant for three voices in syllabic block
chords are similar to simple chorales and
were likely first imported from Poland.
The mid-eighteenth century saw a great
influence of Italian styles on Russian church
music initiated in part by the presence of
Baldassare Galuppi in St. Petersburg and of
49
of traditional chants employing functional
chromatic harmony. This movement, often
referred to as the St. Petersburg School,
was strong throughout the century. By the
1830s, Glinka, influenced by both German and French models, advocated modal
harmonization of chant melodies without
modulation or dissonance. A rival School
of Moscow evolved mid-century which
continued the modal harmonic style and incorporated other folk elements. In this style,
the cantus firmus of chant could be treated
more freely, wandering between voices. This
style is the basis for Rachmaninov’s All-Night
Vigil. However, it is the simpler chordal St.
Petersburg style that became the common
style of Russian church music following the
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1917 Revolution and remains so today. The
Finnish Orthodox church is no exception
to this trend.
Formal Unity in Rautavaara’s Vigilia
The form of each movement of Vigilia is
dictated by the liturgical text.8 Rautavaara
set the chanting of the deacon for solo
baritone and the chanting of the priest for
solo tenor. A quartet of soloists and the
chorus are used in various combinations
for choral sections throughout the work. Of
particular note are the three movements for
basso profundo soloist (2, 5, 11). Rautavaara
writes in Omakuva (“Self-Portrait”) that
the inspiration was the chanting of the low
bass in the coronation scene of the 1945
Eisenstein movie Ivan the Terrible that he saw
while studying composition in New York in
the mid 1950s.9 Very low writing extends
beyond the bass solo to a “pedal bass” section of the choir, which sings low Ds and Cs
in eleven movements and even low BB-flats
in movement 7.
Formal unity is often found in the recurrence of musical motives, both melodic and
harmonic, in response to reappearances of
particular texts. For example, the doxological verses in movements 3, 9, 16, and 20 all
make use of the same motivic material, although it is varied in each instance. Similarly,
a motive associated with the text “bless the
Lord” is first heard in the setting of Psalm
10310 and then at similar textual references
in movements 22 and 32.
Formal unity is also achieved through
the recurrence of harmonic patterns (for
example, the alternation of chords on a
mediant pivot in movements 4, 5, 7, and 8)
or textural techniques (pyramiding is used
for the two settings of the Kyrie eleison, ascending in movement 8 and descending in
movement 10). Despite the large number of
movements and the variety of musical styles
in Vigilia, it is unified through the return of
musical ideas and by its original identity as
a piece of service music with a prescribed
textual format.
Musical Languages in Rautavaara’s Vigilia
When Rautavaara was commissioned
to compose Vigilia, liturgy at the Uspenski
Cathedral in Helsinki was sung to music
from the St. Petersburg School. Beyond the
obvious use of the basso profundo and the
texture of homophonic choral chanting, the
musical styles of Vigilia bear little resemblance to those of the Russian Church. In
Vigilia, Rautavaara eschews the St. Petersburg style—except for the predominantly
homophonic choral texture—in favor of his
own personal modernist musical style, influenced by Byzantine elements. As mentioned
above, Rautavaara is considered a stylistic
pluralist. Many aspects of his style are apparent in Vigilia, including the use of Sprechstimme, various modal and non-diatonic
scale collections (octatonic, other synthetic
modes), quartal and quintal harmonies, harmonic motion by mediant pivots, mirroring scalar constructions around a pitch,
pyramiding tones into a cluster, bitonality, and
cadences with both major and minor thirds.
Rautavaara wrote that in composing
Vigilia he was attempting to evoke the music
of the older Byzantine world.
When I investigated the most ancient
musical tradition of the Church, what
surprising things there were to be
found there in the Byzantine tradition!
Wild glissandos, micro-inter vals,
rhythmic vivacity. The harmonically
indigent and melodically conventional
singing which today is the Orthodox
liturgical norm—which parishioners
accustomed to it from childhood
hold for very holy tradition—that,
on the contrary, proved to be the
result of very recent innovation. At
the command of the Czar, the court
musicians, the so-called “Petersburg
School” carried out in the nineteenth
centur y a reform whereby these
musicians, educated to roughly the
technique of a Verdi, brought into
church singing the endless row of
I V- V- I harmonic passages, which we
hear in church now. But it was the
old Byzantine techniques that I now
wished to bring into my own Vigil. Its
means were, after all, also the means
of the avant garde of my own time.11
Clearly Rautavaara saw an affinity between
musical elements of Byzantine chant and
certain modern compositional tools. While
rooted in Rautavaara’s own musical style,
the musical fabric of Vigilia includes elements recognizable from transcriptions of
Byzantine chant. Rautavaara quoted a Byz-
antine melody, imitated Byzantine chant, and
adopted some elements, such as grace notes,
directly. Beyond these surface elements,
Vigilia evinces other less obvious influences
of Byzantine chant. These include the use of
recurring patterns reflecting the organization of Byzantine chant, the employment
of microtones and of the octatonic scale as
reflections of non-equal-tempered tuning,
and the presence of drones.
Modernist Musical Language
Before discussing Byzantine influence in
more detail in Part Two, let us first examine
some hallmarks of Rautavaara’s modernism
as seen in Vigilia.
The second movement of “Vespers,”
Alkupsalmi (Opening Psalm) is a setting of
the opening of Psalm 103 (104 in Protestant
traditions). It begins with basso profondo
solo, who intones the Psalm (Figure 1). The
Figure 1
51
Figure 2
choir responds with the
refrain “Glory to Thee, O
Lord.”The opening chant
begins with the outline
of a d minor chord, shifting to an f minor chord,
a pivot of the mediant
F in d minor becoming
the root of f minor. The
choral response exhibits
a number of Rautavaara’s
traits. It begins with a
quintal stack, ascending
from an F in the second
bass, through C, G, and
D up to A in the soprano
(m. 2). Beginning in the
third measure, the upper three voices move in
parallel motion, another
stylistic trait of the composer. In measures 5 and
6, Rautavaara creates an
accelerando by shortening rhythmic values,
building energy to the
cadential word “Herra” (Lord). The cadence (Troparion of the Resurrection) from “Matcomes to rest on a d minor 9th chord, an ins,” movement 19 (Figure 2), shows Rauexample of Rautavaara’s use of added note tavaara’s use of mirroring around a pitch. In
or extended triadic resting cadential chords. this case, two partial scales are built around
The end of the Ylösnousemustropari the pitch C. The first sopranos and tenors
52
rise from C with a pair of whole steps, a half
step, and another whole step (C-D-E-F-G)
while the second altos and basses descend
from C in the same pattern (C-B ♭ -A♭ -G-F).
The other voices harmonize this mirroring,
including pitches not in those two scales.The
cadence (m. 108) is a fine example of Rautavaara’s frequent use of a cadential chord
with a doubly inflected mediant, in this case
a D triad with both major and minor thirds.
Another example of mirroring is found
at the beginning of the Troparion that begins
“Matins” (movement 16, Figure 3). Here
the mirroring occurs between the second
soprano and first alto voices, and then the
first soprano and second alto voices. The
pitch collection used in measures 1– 6 is the
octatonic scale: G-A ♭ -B♭ -B-C #-D-E-F. The
octatonic collection is generally regarded as
a tool of modernism, but a connection to
Byzantine chant and modes will be explored
in Part Two of the article. Beginning in bar
seven, the mirroring changes. Now both
soprano parts move in parallel fifths and
fourths within an A major scale while the
alto parts, also in parallel fifths and fourths,
mirror the sopranos within a C-flat major
Figure 3
53
Figure 4
scale. Rautavaara’s use of
changing meters to accommodate text setting is also
clear in this example.
Vigilia was written for
the feast of the Beheading of John the Baptist.
Rautavaara discovered that
the “proper texts for that
day had unbelievable, naively harsh and mystically
profound passages.”12 Six
movements of the work
refer to the biblical story
of John, Herod, and Salome (Matthew 14:3–11),
prompting a compositional
response from Rautavaara
not always in keeping with
the solemnity and ancient
mysticism of a vigil service.
The “Vespers” Sticheron of
Invocation (movement 5)
is the best example. After
opening with solo and
choral chant, in a section
marked molto drammatico,
the bass soloist describes
the “sinful dancing” of Salome with phrases jor, gyrating around the common pitch G
that cover a full two octaves, sliding back (Figure 4). The choir responds by repeating
and forth between E minor and E-flat ma- the word “verta” (blood), the sopranos slid-
54
ing downward a diminished fourth, possibly
the aural image of a seeping wound (Figure
5). This music is more appropriate to the
Figure 5
concert stage or opera house than to the
Orthodox service.
Conclusion of
Part One
Thus far we have been introduced to
the Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara
with an overview of his compositional output. We have explored the musical language
of Rautavaara, and more specifically Vigilia,
and also traced an historical overview of
the Orthodox Vigil service. It has been
argued that Byzantine influence is a major
stylistic trait, particularly in the use of chant.
In Part Two of the article, other Byzantine
influences will be analyzed—including the
use of microtones to approximate alternate
Byzantine tuning systems, the use of grace
notes, and the use of drones.
NOTES
1
The complete oeuvre of Rautavaara is kept upto-date at the Web site of the Finnish Music
Information Center: http://www.fimic.fi.
2
See Rautavaara’s memoir, Omakuva, and the
articles “Einojuhani Rautavaara: a portrait of
the artist at a certain moment” by Mikko
Heiniö, and the interview with Rautavaara
by Tapani Länsiö, “And how does the avantgarde feel this morning?” in the Finnish Music
Quarterly.
3
Biographical information taken from Kimmo
Korhonen, Inventing Finnish Music, translated
by Jaakko Mäntyjärvi. Helsinki: Finnish Music
Information Centre, 2003, 132–33.
4
The following information comes from the Web
site of the Finnish Music Information Centre;
see note 1.
5
Einojuhani Rautavaara, “Choirs, Myths and
Finnishness,” Finnish Music Quarterly (1/1997),
4.
6
Ibid.
7
A clear English setting of the Vigil service can be
found in The Offices of the Oriental Church,
edited by Nicholas Bjerring. New York: AMS
Press, 1969, 1–39.
8
See Freder ick Lokken, “The music for
unaccompanied mixed chorus of Einojuhani
Rautavaara,” DMA doc., Univ. of Washington,
1999, for a brief chapter on Vigilia’s musical
styles.
9
Einojuhani Rautavaara, Omakuva. Porvoo, Finland:
Werner Söderstom Osakeyhtiö, 1989, 138.
Psalm 104 in Protestant traditions.
11
Einojuhani Rautavaara, “On a Taste for the Infinite,”
Contemporary Music Review (12/1995) 10, 12.
12
Einojuhani Rautavaara, preface to the score of
Vigilia. Helsinki: Warner/Chappell Music
Finland, 1997.
10
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Children’s Choirs
Robyn Lana, National Chair
lanarr@uc.edu
Keep America’s Youth Singing
by
Karen L. Bruno,
North Central R&S Chair, Children’s Choirs
The new ACDA Web site is up and
running, connecting us to a wealth of new
resources. The Children’s Choir Repertoire
and Standards area of the site contains
several resources thanks to Robyn Lana, National Chair for Children’s Choir Repertoire
& Standards. Among other documents, Lana
gives us access to the history of children’s
choir activity by listing the goals set twenty
years ago by Doreen Rao and the National
Committee on Children’s Choirs.1 These
goals outline why children’s choirs matter
and suggest ways in which children should
experience the choral art. Although twenty
years have passed, the goals remain relevant.
What can we learn from the beginnings of
the children’s choir movement? What does
the future hold for children’s choirs? Most
importantly, how can we keep America’s
youth singing?
Singing was once the foundation of most
elementary school music curricula.2, 3 Lowell
Mason and his contemporaries brought music into the Boston public schools in 1838.
The music curriculum focused on developing
singing skills, which remained the primary
goal of elementary music education for
more than a century. 4, 5 In the middle of the
twentieth century, however, a change came
to American curricula when Russia launched
the satellite Sputnik.6 After Sputnik, the arts
were more difficult to justify because they
didn’t seem as useful as the core subjects,
particularly science and math.7 In order to
retain music in school curricula, a nationwide philosophical shift took place, and
general music was born.8 Music was more
difficult to dismiss because new methodologies to teach musical literacy were newly
available—Kodály, Orff, Dalcroze, and others.9 These new approaches did employ the
use of singing, among other strategies, but
the goal of each was to teach music literacy,
not to teach children how to sing.10
During the same time frame (mid to late
twentieth century), the number of private,
community-based children’s choir programs
increased significantly in number.11, 12 When
ACDA began in 1959, community children’s
choirs existed only in isolated locales across
America.13 In the 1960s, community children’s choir activity increased, but it was not
until the 1970s that community children’s
choirs exploded onto the national stage, appearing at choral conventions and festivals.14
In 1981, ACDA appointed Children’s Choir
Repertoire and Standards divisions in each
region of the United States.15 Since that
time, ACDA has continued to support the
Children’s Choir division and new community based children’s choirs, boy choirs, and
girl choirs continue to form throughout the
country. Why has the number of children’s
choir programs continued to increase? Part
of the answer to this question lies in the
curricular changes that have continued since
Sputnik.
Regardless of their preferred method of
pedagogy, most elementary music educators
now teach to the National Standards for
Music Education, as developed by the Music
Educators National Conference (MENC)
from 1992 to 1994.16 As the core subjects
began to develop standards, it was wise for
the arts to follow suit. This method of advocacy—aligning the structure of arts education with that of core subjects—helped keep
the arts in the schools, just as it did in the
1950s. MENC’s work in developing national
music standards led the arts to be recognized as a “fundamental academic subject”
in the legislation titled Goals 2000: Educate
America Act.17 This was, indeed, a worthy
goal, but at what price?
The amount of time most elementary
school general music teachers see their students is lamentably small. In a fast-response
survey of public elementary school principles
and teachers, the United States Department
of Education found that the 94 percent of
students who received music instruction in
elementary school spent an average of 46
hours in music class over the course of the
1999–2000 academic year.18 Most classes
were reported to be approximately half an
hour in length.19 While this study seems to
match current anecdotal reality in many areas of the country, there has been no further
research to reinforce these observations.
The U.S. Department of Education itself
admits that the survey was conducted to fill
a hole in the research data available in regard
to the frequency, duration, and accessibility
of arts education in America.20
MENC recognized that the standards
movement would be a powerful one. The
national trend toward (and, in many cases,
requirement of ) testing has cemented the
need for measurable standards; most public
schools have incorporated national standards
into their curricula. For elementary school
general music teachers, this means teaching
nine content standards in approximately 46
hours over the course of a year. Singing,
57
alone and with others, is just one of the
nine standards. While playing instruments,
improvising, composing, reading, notating,
listening to, analyzing, describing, evaluating,
and understanding the relationship between
music, the arts, history, and culture are
worthy goals, are they all necessary in the
elementary grades? Don’t children need to
learn to sing, and to love to sing, before they
delve into these other areas?
MENC does encourage general music
teachers to form school children’s choirs,
but also recommends that students not
rehearse outside of school time.21 For most
elementary school music teachers, this
creates an impossible situation—there is
simply no time in the school day to create
a substantive children’s choir experience.
The same MENC guidebook recommends
that elementary schools offer band and
orchestral experiences.22 When it recommends that music teachers form elementary
school choirs, the study is clear to say that
choir must be in addition to, not instead of,
general music classes; no such statement
exists when, in two separate chapters, it
recommends both bands and orchestras.23
This is likely due to the fact that general music teachers are often (although not always)
trained both in choral and general music. If
an elementary school offers band or orchestra, instrumental teachers are available. If an
elementary school offers a choir, the general
music specialist is expected to squeeze the
choir into a lunch or recess time—often
as short as fifteen minutes—as there is no
additional staff member to teach the choir.
Students, therefore, often have the opportunity to participate in both band or orchestra
and general music, but rarely have the opportunity to participate in both general
music and choir. Many students who wish to
participate in a choir must look outside the
public school classroom to fulfill this desire.
Community children’s choir programs have
developed to fill this need.
An additional reason for the rise of community children’s choirs may have to do with
the staffing of music positions in elementary
schools.The Department of Education study
found that while 94 percent of elementary
school students in the United States did
receive music instruction, only 72 percent of
those classes were taught by music special-
November 17 – 21, 2010
Come and meet the
international choral world
in the United States!
All choirs from all
continents are welcome!
Competitions, gala concerts,
encounter concerts, seminars
and workshops.
Also upcoming:
The American International Choral Festival,
Reno, May 4-8, 2011
www.interkultur.com
INFORMATION & CONTACT:
Christina Prucha, prucha@interkultur.com
Phone: (405) 232-8161
Hugh Ballou, ballou@interkultur.com
Phone: (888) 398-8471
58
INTERKULTUR event in partnership with the American Choral Directors Association,
in collaboration with St. Louis represented by St. Louis Convention and Visitors
Commission and the Regional Arts Commission
ists (2002). This means that approximately
one-third of America’s youth do not receive
instruction from a trained music specialist
during the school day.
We are now into the third generation
of children in the public schools to receive
general music instruction as children. Parents,
uncomfortable with their singing voices, do
not sing to their children at home. Elementary general music educators feel bound
by national standards to cover too much
curricular ground in too little time. Many
children are not learning to love to sing, to
love music, but those in children’s choirs have
a different experience.
Every child should learn to sing. ACDA’s
Children’s Choir Repertoire & Standards
area exists to support this endeavor.25 Given
the momentum and growth of community
based children’s choir programs, it is clear
that our R&S area has provided support to
these programs. Now is the time for us to
be more intentional about supporting our
colleagues in the public schools. Community
children’s choirs can build bridges to the
public schools by holding rehearsals in school
facilities, accepting every student who wishes
to sing, and assisting with financial needs
so that students of modest or low income
can participate. We can also help our public
school colleagues with issues of advocacy. At
the very least, we need to listen to what our
public school colleagues need from us and
to do our best to support them in the goal
of teaching kids to sing.
Given these many factors, community
children’s choirs will continue to grow, but
must work closely with public school programs. For the future of the choral art, and
to support the national music standards,
every child should learn to sing. Every child
should love to sing. Once children experience the joy of singing, they will want to
explore other content standards. Let’s help
America’s youth on their journey to musical
literacy by teaching them to sing.
NOTES
1
Robyn Lana, “A Peek into the History of
Children’s Choir in ACDA—Goals Set in
1989,” (2009). http://acda.org/reper toire/
children%27s_choir/history_goals (accessed
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
February 16, 2009).
Robert W. John, “The General Music Dilemma,”
Music Educators Journal 48, no. 4 (Feb. – Mar.,
1962), http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=00274231%28196202%2F03%2948%3A4%3C6
5%3ATGMD%3E2.0.CO%3B2-T (accessed
August 10, 2007).
Kenneth H. Phillips, Directing the Choral Music
Program. New York: Oxford University Press,
2004
John, 1962
James A. Keene, “An Acceptance of Diversity,
1950 –70,” in A History of Music Education in
the United States (Hanover, NH: University
Press of New England, 1982), 353–63.
Ibid.
Ibid.
John, 1962
Kenneth H. Phillips, “Vocal Pedagogy for Young
Singers,” in Teaching Kids to Sing (New York:
Schirmer Books, 1996), 3–22
Ibid.
Doreen Rao, “Children and Choral Music in
ACDA: The Past and the Present, The
Challenge and the Future,” Choral Journal 29,
no. 8 (April, 1989): 6–14.
Phillips, 2004
Rao, 1989
Ibid.
Ibid.
Music Educators National Conference, “National
Standards for Music Education,” 2008, http://
www.menc.org/resources/view/nationalstandards-for-music-education (accessed
February 16, 2009).
Music Educators National Conference, “The
National Standards for Arts Education: A
Brief History,” 2008, http://www.menc.org/
resouces/view/the-national-standards-forar ts-education-a-brief-histor y (accessed
February 16, 2009)
U.S. Department of Education, “Arts Education in
Public Elementary Schools,” in Arts Education
in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools:
1999–2000 (NCES 2002-131), by Nancy
Carey, Brian Kleiner, Rebecca Porch, Elizabeth
Farris, and Shelley Burns (Washington,
DC: National Center for Education
Statistics, 2002): 5–36, http://nces.ed.gov/
pubs2002/2002131.pdf (accessed August
11, 2007).
Ibid.
Ibid.
Music Educators National Conference, “Guidelines for Performances of School Music
Groups: Expectations and Limitations”
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(Reston, VA: MENC, 1986)
Ibid.
23
Ibid.
24
U.S. Department of Education, 2002
25
Lana, 2009
22
Women’s Choirs
Debra Spurgeon, National
Chair
University of Mississippi
dspurg@olemiss.edu
Women’s Choir Repertoire Performed
at ACDA National Conventions in the
Twenty-First Century
by
Debra Spurgeon
The first decade of the twenty-first
Century has seen five ACDA national
conventions: 2001 in San Antonio; 2003
in New York; 2005 in Los Angeles; 2007
in Miami; and 2009 in Oklahoma City.1
Auditioned choirs from the Women’s Repertoire and Standards area, which includes
high school, college, and adult women’s
choirs, performed on all five conventions.
Collectively, seventeen auditioned women’s
choirs performed a total of 99 compositions.2 By studying the programs of these
women’s choirs, one can see trends related
to repertoire selection and gain insight into
convention programming.3
Stylistic Periods Represented
The vast majority of the repertoire (86
percent) was composed in the twentieth
and twenty-first centuries. The remaining
14 percent was divided in the following
way: two Medieval, two Renaissance, three
Baroque, one Classical, and six Romantic
songs. Noticeably missing are Romantic
period works by composers such as Brahms
60
and Rheinberger, who composed specifically
for the mature women’s choir. Music prior to
the Romantic period was also sparse. Seven
examples that fall in the “early music” category include: O Frodens Virga, Hildegard von
Bingen; Hodie Christus natus est, Palestrina;
Exultate, justi in Domino, Hollander; Cantate
Domino, Schütz; Like as the Hart, Maurice
Greene, arr. Dearnley; and Dixit Dominus by
Michael Hayden.
A wide array of composers was represented in the 99 compositions. The following composers’ music appeared three or
more times: György Orban, Eleanor Daley,
Gwyneth Walker, Z. Randall Stroope, Stephen Hatfield, Joan Szymko, and Atahualpa
Yupanqui (arr. E. Sole). Similarly, many different publishers were represented, but a few
publishers appeared with greater frequency.
Earthsongs had the largest share of compositions (14 percent) followed by Alliance
Music (seven percent), Boosey and Hawkes
(six percent) and Oxford (five percent.) Unpublished manuscripts made up 11 percent
of the total.
Programming considerations
There was scant duplication of repertoire
over the ten year period, which shows that
conductors attempt to select repertoire
that has not already been performed on
the national convention stage. The following
works, which were repeated, are exceptions:
Duerme Negrito by Atahualpa Yupanqui, arranged by E. Sole, performed in 2003, 2007,
and 2009; Lauda Sion by György Orban,
performed in 2001 and 2003; Mass No. 6
by György Orban, performed in 2003 and
2005; O Frodens Virga by Hildegard von
Bingen, performed in 2003 and 2005; and
Nada te Turbe by Joan Szymko, performed
in 2003 and 2009.
Many factors must be considered in
choosing repertoire for a convention program such as text, tempo, and suitability to
the singers, to name a few. Some conductors
take particular care to find just the right
“opener” and “closer.” The following songs
were chosen to open the women’s concerts:
Aglepta, Mellnas; Kaval Sviri, Liondev; Zutaz,
Busto; Lift Thine Eyes, Mendelssohn; Psalm
121, Larsen; Adiemus, Jenkins; Lauda Sion,
Orban; Venite Exultemus Domino, Rosso;
O Frodens Virga, von Bingen; Magnificat,
Stroope; Noels des enfants, Debussy; Ya
Faroule, Hatfield; Awake and Sing, Forsberg;
Exultate, justi in Domino, Hollander; Universal
Song, Hall; Alleluia, laus et gloria, O’Regan and
Cantate Domino by Schütz.
These songs functioned as “closers:”
Punching the Dough, Parker; Italian Polka,
Rachmaninoff; Lullaby of Broadway, arr. Dagsvik; John Saw the Numbuh, arr.Thomas; I Thank
You God, Walker; Weep No More, Childs;
Kashiri, Tae Kyun Ham; Two Gaelic Songs, Cronan, arr. Smith; Sweepin’ Through the City, arr.
Holland; So Many Angels, Walker; Dravidian
Dithyramb, Parajoti; Music Down in My Soul,
Hogan; Holy is the Lord, Ames; Ain’t No Grave
can Hold My Body Down, Caldwell/Ivory; Ride
on, King Jesus, Hogan; and Lay Earth’s Burden
Down by Caldwell/Ivory.
Summary
This brief look at the repertoire performed by women’s choirs at national
conventions in the first decade of the
twenty-first century reveals interesting information. Most noticeably, the majority of the
repertoire comes from the late twentieth
and twenty-first centuries. This trend has
become a part of convention expectations
for at least the past decade.There are those
who believe too much of the repertoire
performed on convention programs in general is weighted toward the modern era. In
fact, the 2007 Miami convention planning
committee stipulated that one or two songs
had to be chosen from the pre-twentieth
century.
Most songs performed on the national
conventions were composed specifically for
the mature female choir, with very few revoicings of mixed or other repertoire. Some
of the finest composers of all time were
represented. Conductors showed some
interest in music outside the Western European tradition by programming a mixture of
countries and languages. English was the predominant language with 45 percent of the
total. Latin was the next highest (18 percent),
followed by Spanish (eight percent). The
remaining 29 percent was divided between
French, Basque, German, Hebrew, Lebanese,
Swedish, Russian, Gaelic, Japanese, Korean,
Bulgarian, and Czechoslovakian songs. About
half of the repertoire performed was secular
in nature. Conductors obviously attempted
to select programs that showcased the newest repertoire as evidenced by the number
of unpublished manuscripts performed.
Anyone wishing to study the repertoire
in greater depth or to view the 17 women’s
choir programs from the national conventions may go to the ACDA Repertoire and
Standards Web site:www.acda.org/repertoire and click on Women and Resources .
The titles are grouped together by conven-
tion year and each separate program is listed
in their original order.
NOTES
1
In 2001, four women’s choirs performed on the
national convention in San Antonio: two high
school and two college choirs. Five women’s
choirs performed on the 2003 convention in
New York, which was the highest number for
the decade. In 2005, three choirs performed
in Los Angeles: one high school, one college
and one adult choir.The lowest number in the
decade was in 2007 at the Miami convention
when only one high school women’s choir
performed. There were four women’s choirs,
three high school and one college, at the
Oklahoma City Convention in 2009.
2
The repertoire discussed in this article can be
viewed at www.acda.org/repertoire. Select
women, resources.
3
This article only pertains to auditioned choirs and
does not include information about invited
professional women’s choirs or international
choirs that appeared on national conventions.
In addition, treble choirs with elementary
or middle school aged singers were not
included. Repertoire information was taken
from the national convention program books.
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62
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Recording Your Choir: Technology for the Choral Director
by
C. Blair Bryant
Editor’s Note: Some years ago, as
a student at Birmingham-Southern
College, I would carry a rather bulky
tape recorder on choir tours to record
concerts for our director, Hugh Thomas.
Technology has changed a great deal
over the year s, and many choral
directors are quite adept at recording
their ensembles. For those who are not
such technophiles, this column from Blair
Bryant, a Florida high school director,
offer valuable, easy to use information.
The choir director is assumed to be a
sound professional. This assumption leaves
many choral directors frustrated, because
many of us have little or no training in the
area of sound engineering. Almost every director can use recording technology, typically
for an audition, rehearsal, or concert record-
Blair Bryant is the chorus director
at Lake Howell High School in
Winter Park, Florida. He received
a Bachelors degree in music
education from the University of
Colorado at Boulder and a Masters
degree in music education from
Florida State University.
ing. Recordings give us an objective view of
our ensemble and help us correct and mold
our choirs. In most instances, we are solely
responsible for recording our choirs, leaving
us the task of becoming novice sound engineers. Fortunately, we live in an age where
this can be done with a basic computer,
microphone, and recording software. Using
these basic tools, we can produce high quality recordings simply and efficiently.
Hardware
Each choir has different needs, but in most
cases a computer—laptop or desktop—will
provide plenty of recording possibilities.
In recent years, Macintosh has designed
computers that come with fully integrated
hardware (microphone) and software (e.g.,
Garageband) that allows the user to record
just like a professional. For the novice, there
is no better path; Macs enable any beginner
to record, edit, and burn a CD with minimal
training. If you are primarily recording in one
location, a desktop computer might be the
way to go, since it comes equipped with a
larger hard drive that allows it to store more
recordings. A laptop computer gives the choral director portability to record on the road
or in a unique space. Because laptops do not
have as much built-in memory, an external
hardrive of 300–500 Gigabytes is recommended as well. Mac laptops, such as the
MacBook or MacBook Pro, provide ample
means for producing quality recordings. A
PC can do the same, but for the purposes
of this column, I am highlighting the simplest
means for a novice to record and which I
have found to be the most practical.
Software
Picking the ideal software can be challenging. There are dozens of recording
platforms ranging from advanced to novice.
When selecting software, be sure to check
the system requirements, because most
recording software requires a more robust
processor and larger memory. For this
reason, it is a good idea not to have other
software running while recording. Analysis of
your recording needs will guide you in the
selection of software. Many of the industry
standards, such as Pro-Tools, Logic, and CUBase, employ more features than the average
choral director will ever use. When it comes
to choosing recording software, choose one
that is going to be easy to operate, edit, mix,
and burn. The advantage of recording with
a computer is the ability to multi-track record your ensemble; adding more than one
track will enhance the overall sound of your
recording. The software should also allow
you to edit portions of a performance, thus
greatly improving the final product. To edit
the recording, most software will come with
tools that allow you to add effects, balance
parts, or “clean up” mistakes. Programs such
as Garageband (MAC) $62.99 and Cakewalk
Home Studio (PC) $159 are user friendly and
63
come equipped with all the above features.
For a free alternative, Audacity is available
online at audacity.sourceforge.net.
Audio Interface
After selecting your computer and
software, it will be necessary to choose an
audio interface. Although some computers
come with built in microphones, they are not
designed to record a choir. The audio interface plugs into the computer via a USB or
Firewire cable, making it possible to record
using external microphones. The director
needs to determine how many microphones
will be used in the recording process; for
the novice, one or two should suffice. The
64
M-Audio Fast Track Pro ($158.95) is a great
option because it comes equipped with
two XLR (mic) inputs with phantom power.
The phantom power feature is key; it allows
the use of higher quality condenser microphones.The Fast Track attaches to any computer via a USB cable and is easy to operate.
If the goal is to record a studio quality album,
an eight- to twelve-input mixer would be
more appropriate. There are many options,
but the Presonus Firestudio Project ($396)
or the Presonus 10x10 ($416) are affordable
and offer more than enough in terms of
preamps and inputs. Be aware that this type
of recording requires a more savy engineer
and a more robust computer set-up.
Microphones
Finding the optimal microphone is the final step in completing your recording set-up.
As most of us have discovered, microphones
can drastically alter or color the sound of
a choir, which occurs because of a microphone’s operating principle. Microphones
are essentially split into two types: dynamic
and condenser. Dynamic microphones can
receive high degrees of amplitude before distortion, making them the choice for most live
situations where high decibel instruments
are used. They are also the most common
and affordable. Condensers, on the other
hand, add very little color to the sound,
making them more accurate. Condensers
require a phantom power source of 48v or
more, typically available in any quality audio
interface or mixer. These microphones will
not alter the sound of your ensemble as
much as a dynamic microphone and are the
clear choice for recording a choir. A quality
pair of condenser microphones such as the
Rode NT5 matched pair ($189.95) will be
adequate for most ensembles. If recording a
concert in an acoustical environment, place
the microphones so that they maximize the
room’s resonant qualities. A distance of eight
to twelve feet away from the choir raised six
to eight from the floor should suffice.
There are dozens of techniques used for
placement of microphones; much depends
on the microphone’s design and directional
characteristic.Therefore, I suggest consulting
a sound professional for advice. Take note
of the way choirs are recorded at events
that hire sound professionals; observe what
types of microphones are used and how
they are placed. Many times the equipment
is much more expensive, but the placement
techniques remain the same. Different placements of microphones in a recording space
can dramatically affect the recording. It is
important to experiment with placement to
determine what works best in your situation.
garding all elements of recording. Recording
is an art form that can take years of study
and devotion to perfect, but, for most needs,
this modest recording tutorial should suffice.
Final Thoughts
Recording and producing a quality
compact disc of a choral ensemble is not as
expensive or difficult as many perceive. Analyze your recording needs and then select
the software, hardware, and microphones
that meet those needs. Recording—like
any technology-based art—is a process
that involves problem solving, patience and
education. Most of the equipment described
above is available at a discount to educators
and churches and can be found at retail
giants such as Sam Ash or Guitar Center.
The salespeople have proven to be very
helpful in outfitting programs with necessary
equipment at affordable costs. The Internet
is another useful resource to find discount
gear but be wary; you do not have the tech
support and answers you could receive
firsthand from sales staff. The Recording
Method books by Bill Gibson (published by
Hal Leonard) are a wonderful source reChoral Journal • October 2009
The Courage to Care
Photo by Getty Images
22 singers, brass quintet, pianist and narrators present
more than a concert: words of inspiration in a rich musical setting.
2009 Tour Schedule
Oct. 1 - Quincy, IL
Salem United Ch. of Christ
Oct. 2 - Aurora, IL
(Chicago area)
First Presbyterian Ch.
Oct. 3 - Rockford, IL
Our Savior Lutheran Ch.
Oct. 4 - Brookfield, WI
(Milwaukee area)
St. John’s Lutheran Ch.
Oct. 6 - Hebron, KY
(Cincinnati area)
Hebron Lutheran Ch.
Oct. 7 - Brentwood, PA
(Pittsburgh area)
Zion Lutheran Ch.
Oct. 8 - Allentown, PA
St. John’s Lutheran Ch.
Oct. 9 - Springfield, PA
(Philadelphia area)
St. Matthew’s Lutheran Ch.
Oct. 11 - New York, NY
Zankel Hall at Carnegie
Oct. 12 - Frederick, MD
Evangelical Lutheran Ch.
Oct. 13 - Lynchburg, VA
Timberlake United Methodist Ch.
Oct. 14 - Dalton, GA
First Presbyterian Ch.
Oct. 16 - Gurnee, IL
(Chicago area)
St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Ch.
Oct. 17 - Lexington, KY
Faith Lutheran Ch.
Oct. 18 - St. Louis, MO
Ladue Chapel Presbyterian Ch.
(co-sponsored by
Trinity Lutheran - Chesterfield)
For more information: www.cornerstonechorale.org
65
inspired
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Others promise custom-created performance tours. Encore delivers.
Call us at 1-877-460-3801, or visit us at www.encoretours.com
66
Book Reviews
Stephen Town, editor, STown@nwmissouri.edu
Tenor: History of a Voice
John Potter
Yale University Press, 2009
306 pp
$35.00
ISBN 978-0-300-11873-5 (Hardcover).
http://yalepress.yale.edu/yupbooks/book.
asp?isbn=9780300118735
Most choral directors, and even the
general public, have heard of the legendary
Three Tenors (the late Luciano Pavarotti,
Placido Domingo, and Jose Carreras), whose
legendary stadium concerts took place from
1990 to 1998. These concerts, and the
classification and history of the tenor voice
in general, are points of departure for John
Potter in his book, Tenor: History of a Voice.
This work, a comprehensive history of the
solo tenor voice from the Middle Ages to
the twenty-first century, is so fascinating that
it was difficult for this tenor to put back on
the shelf each day (would it were that I could
have read it all without putting it down).
Potter acknowledges the problem
with chronicling the development of the
tenor voice throughout history, namely
the absence of recordings until the early
twentieth century. Nonetheless, he gives a
comprehensive and scholarly account of the
voice type from its origin in the Middle Ages
through the Ars Nova, when polyphony had
implications for voice classification beyond
monophonic chant, through the Renaissance
and the beginning of the modern tenor
and opera in the seventeen century. He
then traces the voice through subsequent
developments, including the haute-contre
and Wagnerian Heldentenor of the nineteenth century, and the national schools of
tenor voice in the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries, and their documentation through
recordings. In fact, over eighty pages of the
book is devoted to an alphabetical listing of
tenors, including discographies and Web sites
when they exist.
Potter’s work includes sections on Handel and Mozart, including a discussion of the
connection between tenors and castrati; the
development of range and timbre of Nourrit
and Duprez (early nineteenth century); the
development of the tenor as artist; Caruso
and the Italians; The British tenors; France
and Russia; and Post-War losses and gains.
Tenor voices are discussed in detail, based on
historical accounts, including Ludwig Schnoor
von Carolsfeld (the first Tristan), to names
familiar to this tenor, many of them legendary and famous through their recordings:
Enrico Caruso, Jussi Björling,
Ian Bostridge, José Carreras, Franco Corelli, Hughes
Cuénod (b. 1902 and still
living as of this writing!),
Jean de Reszke, Giuseppe Di
Stefano, Placido Domingo,
Nicolai Gedda, Mario Lanza
(who played Caruso in the 1949 film The
Great Caruso), John McCormack, Lauritz
Melchoir (also starring in film), Ian Partridge,
Luciano Pavarotti, Peter Pears, Anthony
Rolfe-Johnson, Tito Schipa (teacher of one
of my teachers), Peter Schrier, Leo Slezak
(father of Hollywood’s Walter Slezak), Richard Tucker, and Fritz Wunderlich. Of course,
these are but a fraction of Potter’s listings.
Also listed are general tenor Web sites; of
course, a preliminary check indicates that
there are more of these than, say, soprano
Web sites.
Potter has a section, “National Styles
versus Internationalism” (pp. 170–71) where
he states:
The hugely increased availability of
recordings inevitably saw a tendency
toward standardisation [Potter is a
British writer], which led to losses
in key aspects of tenor singing, a
trajector y which has continued
into the CD era. In the early years
of the twenty-fir st centur y the
universal availability of almost any
product in the western world has
meant that even the most obscure
tenors are available somewhere on
record if buyers look hard enough,
but the mainstream of tenor singing
has undoubtedly lost much of the
individuality that it had a hundred
years before. Standardisation is driven
by commercial criteria: markets are
identified and exploited by record
companies; for singers, significant
models become fewer and more
similar. This pattern has persisted into
the twenty-first century.
One wonders how much of this situation
could apply to the world of choral singing.
Perhaps not as much as solo singing, but
there still may be a homogeneity of sound
that has developed in certain choirs, choral
conductors and recordings as well.
Also of interest are Potter’s comments
on what he calls “alternative voices” (pp.
188–89). He refers to the British “steady
supply of ex-Oxbridge male voices, increasingly augmented by female voices towards
the end of [the twentieth] century, [which]
encouraged an entrepreneurial spirit that
led to the setting up of a large number of
vocal ensembles.” Many such ensembles
specialized in early and Renaissance music,
including The Tallis Scholars and the Hilliard
Ensemble (of which Potter was a member).
“These groups featured tenors who had
been trained with a modern technique, but
in the context of elite professional choirs
which required minimal vibrato so that
chords could be tuned with considerable
refinement…. For tenors it meant a chance
to explore repertoires that had not been
sung for generations, and the opportunity to
re-envision canonic composers such as Bach,
Handel, and Mozart.” He goes on to say that
the tenor, and the solo singer in general, may
have a life that is not dependent on opera if
one sings in an ensemble. He also indicates
67
Book Reviews
that, no matter what one thinks of his style,
the recent recording of Dowland by the
rock musician Sting has stimulated the early
music dialogue in Britain (p. 192), and may
be indicative of a trend toward the future.
Tenor: History of a Voice is more than history. It is a vocal philosophy; it is a journey
into the past with conjectures of the future;
it is a compendium of national approaches
to the voice; and it brings new realizations
about operatic, solo and choral singing. Potter is intellectually engaging and delightfully
readable. It is highly recommended.
Donald Callen Freed,
Alpine, Texas
The Worlds of Johann Sebastian Bach
Raymond Erickson (editor).
New York: Amadeus Press, 2009
344 pp.
$34.99
ISBN:1574671669 (Hardcover).
An Imprint of:
Hal Leonard Corporation (HL 00331943)
7777 West Bluemound Road
Milwaukee, WI 53213
www.halleonard.com
In the family of recent books about
the life and works of Johann Sebastian
Bach, Raymond Erikson’s Worlds of Johann
Sebastian Bach provides fresh insights from
twenty-first century scholarship into Bach’s
Prague
Choral Festival
Dr. André Thomas
W. A. Mozart: Requiem
Dr. Anton Armstrong
L. Bernstein: Chichester Psalms
Czech National Symphony
July 10–18, 2011
www.PragueChoralFestival.org
68
life and community. The editor, honored by
the American Bach Society and the German
government for his research
into the life of the composer,
has compiled a book of essays which offer traditional
and pioneering perspectives.
Many of these are derived
from discoveries made after
the fall of the Iron Curtain, including significant literature since the Bach anniversary
year of 2000.
An outgrowth of the multidisciplinary
academies sponsored by the Aston Magna
Foundation for Music and the Humanities
with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, this volume
makes accessible in English much recent
German-language scholarship. The essays,
written by leading scholars in their disciplines,
encompass the fields of history, religion,
architecture, literature, theater, and dance
as they relate to the composer’s life and his
interaction with a broad spectrum of his
world. Observations by leading Bach specialists who focus on the man himself are a
highlight of this book. They include:
Religion and Religious Currents by Robin
Leaver, professor of sacred music at
Westminster Choir College of Rider
University. Leaver explores Bach’s life
and work in context with his deep
Lutheran faith and heritage.
Musician-Novels of the German Baroque
by Stephen Rose, lecturer in music at
Royal Holloway, University of London.
Rose is an early music specialist whose
essay relates the mind-set of a range of
German Baroque musicians, from Bach
and his contemporaries to the town
pipers, military musicians, and hurdygurdy players.
Bach and the Lure of the Big City, authored by George B. Stauffer, dean of
the Mason Gross School of the Arts
and professor of music at Rutgers University, details Bach’s numerous travels
to Hamburg, Berlin, and Dresden.
Bach in the Early Twenty-first Century,
written by Hans-Joachim Schulze, principal editor of the Bach Dokumente and
retired director and project leader of
the New Bach Edition, includes material
concerning the reconstructing of Bach’s
lost works, his music in staged interpretations, issues of performance practice,
and temperament in performance.
For the reviewer, one the most engaging
features of this volume is the combination
of literal and visual scholarship. The twohundred illustrations and photographs of
people, maps, and manuscripts in Bach’s
heavy hand bring a new dimension to the
discoveries of these eminent scholars. In
addition, the extensive notes at the end of
each chapter provide further avenues for
exploration and research.
Worlds of Johann Sebastian Bach is a
resource which provides new and unique
extra-musical perspectives of this giant of
Western music. It is highly recommended for
a place on the conductor’s bookshelf.
Gregory M. Pysh
Midland Texas
The Clock of the Years:
A Gerald and Joy Finzi Anthology
Rolf Jordan (editor and compiler)
Lichfield, Staffordshire, UK
Chosen Press, 2007
330 pp.
$47.95
ISBN: 978-0-9556373-0-8 (cloth)
Chosen Press
3 The Close
Lichfield, Staffordshire, WS13 7LD
telephone: 01543-257878;
books@chosenpress.co.uk or
Chosen Press,
668 Mount Hope Avenue
NY 14620-2731
telephone: 585-275-0419
The Clock of the Years is a Festschrift of
writings on the life and output of the English
composer Gerald Finzi (1901–56), his wife,
Joyce (or “Joy” as she was known) née Black
(1907–91), an artist and poet, and the idyllic
place, Church Farm, Ashmansworth, where
they lived and shared their magical life with
others. I shall never forget my pilgrimage
to Ashmansworth in the late ‘90s. From
Oxford, where I had been examining Finzi’s
manuscripts in the Bodleian
Library, I had driven to the site
in North Hampshire, seven
miles south of Newbury on
the old road to Andover—
Church Farm, semi-isolated
on the edge of the small village of Ashmansworth—and 700 feet above
sea level. Mine was an unannounced visit and,
undoubtedly, I was trespassing; but I wanted
to see the house, shielded from the road
and drive by a tall flint and brick wall, and
to search for Finzi’s headstone in the little
churchyard of St. James’s Church adjacent to
the property. As I enjoyed the spectacular
views of the countryside on that lovely day,
I thought about the happiest years spent by
the Finzi family in their interesting home with
its ever-growing library of literature and music; the happy ambience of the children, cats,
and notable guests, for example Vaughan
Williams and his wife, Ursula, to name two;
the work completed with such enthusiasm
and love by Finzi (his compositions and other
pursuits, such as the apple orchard) and Joy
(her drawings and poetry); the fragility of
human existence and the tyranny of time
that haunted the composer; and so on—all
of which (and more) is celebrated in this
volume marking twenty-five years of the
Finzi Friends Newsletter.
The book is divided into twelve sections
(“At Ashmansworth”; “‘The Most Honest
of Friends’”[remembering Finzi]; “A Kind
of Fostering” [Finzi as composition tutor];
“Wife and Mother, Artist, and Organizer”
[about Joy]; “The Poems of Joy Finzi” [from
A Point of Departure and Twelve Months of
a Year, plus two New Year poems]; “Writings of Gerald Finzi”; “Writings on Finzi’s
Music” [for example, “Requiem da camera
by Philip Thomas]; “An Improbable Partnership” [about Hardy and Finzi]; “Friends and
Influences” [on Farrar,Vaughan Williams, and
Blunden, to name three];“The Concentrated
Eye” [about the creative act]; “Making Music”
[for example, Philip Langridge and Christopher Finzi commenting on “Thoughts on
World Symposium on Choral Music
August 3-10, 2011 •Puerto Madryn • Patagonia, Argentina
The 9th World Symposium on Choral Music will be held in Puerto Madryn, Argentina, from August 3-10,
2011. The new Symposium web site www.wscm9.com is now prepared with updated and interesting
information. The deadline for registration of choirs interested in participating in the Symposium is October 1, 2009.
To register a Proposal, Project, Round Table, Book or Score Presentation for the conference and academic
side of the Symposium, presenters are encouraged to contact the Symposium organizers by sending an
e-mail to info@wscm9.com.
The General Program of the Symposium and costs will be published by February 10, 2010 on the Web
site, together with suggestions for visiting some of the exciting places in Patagonia and Argentina during
the days surrounding the Symposium.
Puerto Madryn is in the heart of Argentinian Patagonia.
69
Book Reviews
Intimations of Immortality” and “Recording
Dies natialis,” respectively]; and “Composer’s
Gallery” [about other composers]) with
the concomitant prefatory material (“Acknowledgments;” “Illustrations;” “Foreword
by Paul Spicer;” “Preface” [by the editor];
“A note on names”) and concluding matter
(four appendices, i.e., “Sources and selected
further reading,” “Finzi Friends committee,”
“Finzi Friends Newsletter vol. 1, no. 1,” and
“Finzi Friends events;” plus a “General index;”
“Index of Finzi’s works;” and an “Index of
contributors”).The contributions range from
the very brief (a few paragraphs only) to the
quite long (30 pages in length), but all are
affecting and elegant.
Perhaps the core of the volume are Finzi’s
writings, some of which are included in Section VI: “Absalom’s Place,” the composer’s
artistic creed; program notes on Intimations
of Immortality and Dies natalis, respectively;
and a talk given in tribute to Marion Scott,
the long-time custodian of Ivor Gurney’s
Nachlass, “As Guardian of Genius.” “Absalom’s Place” was written for posterity in
July 1941 when the conditions of wartime
Britain became increasingly unstable. “It was
Thomas Hardy who wrote ‘Why do I go on
doing these things?’ [Finzi began] and, indeed,
if appreciation were a measure of merit and
cause for self-esteem, it wd [sic] long ago
have been time for me to shut up shop, class
Yearly fully-staged opera
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Frequent choral tours
Major works for choir
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Edward Bolkovac,
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Wayne Rivera,
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Audition Dates
for Fall 2010
Entrance
December 5
(quick response),
January 29 & 31,
February 12 & 13
www.hartford.edu/hartt
The Hartt School | University of Hartford | 200 Bloomfield Avenue | West Hartford, CT 06117 | 860.768.4465 | harttadm@hartford.edu
70
[I ]t is likely that new ideas, new
fashions and the pressing forward of
new generations, will soon obliterate
my small contribution [he penned].Yet
I like to think that in each generation
may be found a few responsive minds,
and for them I shd [sic] still like the
work to be available. To shake hands
with a good friend over the centuries
is a pleasant thing, and the affection
which an individual may retain after
his departure is perhaps the only thing
which guarantees an ultimate life to
his work (pp. 106– 07).
Thoughtfully, the entire piece is reproduced
in manuscript and, hence, one can view Finzi’s
idiosyncratic calligraphy.
Finzi’s efforts to preserve the unpublished
poems and songs of Ivor Gurney (described
fully in other sources) may be seen as part
of his desire to collect, conserve, and cherish
artifacts of enduing quality. In his tribute to
Marion Scott, “As Guardian of Genius,” he
admirably gave her the credit while revealing the essence of Gurney in perspicacious
sentences, such as the following:
Outstanding Performance
Opportunities for
Undergraduates
Joanna Levy,
chair of voice
myself as a failure, and turn to something of
what the world is pleased to call a more ‘useful’ nature.” Ten years later, in June 1951, Finzi
added a postscript to his document (after
he had been diagnosed with non-Hodgkins
lymphoma and given between five and ten
years to live) that is frequently quoted in
articles and books about him.
The truth is that his mind was
enflamed from his earliest days. That
excitement, ‘Rarely, rarely comest
thou, Spirit of Delight’, was with him
at all times. Many of his early songs .
. . already had that indefinable quality
which marked all his characteristic
work, something that took fire with
fusion of words and music (p. 110).
One suspects that Finzi identified with
Gurney’s compositional gift, and his words
about him underscore the fact that his own
critical reputation rests, first, on Dies natalis
(to words by Traherne) and the solo songs,
especially those with texts by Thomas Hardy.
Finzi’s attraction to Hardy is explicated
by Christopher Stunt in “An Improbable
Partnership,” at 30 pages the longest of the
essays. Both men “distrusted religious dogma,
grieved over suffering, detested war, and
believed that creativity was more important
than fame or wealth.” But “especially relevant
to Finzi’s urge to set Hardy to music” were
their obsessions with the passing of time
and mortality (p. 155). Stunt’s discussion of
the three Crees Lectures delivered by Finzi
in May 1955 at the Royal College of Music
(under the title “The Composer’s Use of
Words”), about a year before his untimely
death, causes one to wonder why they were
not included in the book; the typescript is
readily available, for I was a provided a photocopy by the Royal College of Music Library
where I first read them. At any rate, as Stunt
writes: “what comes across is that he always
found himself passionately involved with the
text he was working with, not just ‘setting
words’ but rather as he put it ‘being enflamed
by them’” (p. 174).
It is Philip Thomas who reminds us in
“An Introduction to Finzi’s Clarinet Concerto” that “the primary interest in Finzi’s
songs is not melodic, but lies in the balance
between psychological and musical tension,
in the drama, the expression of vision and
the illumination of sub-text. Finzi uses the
song medium to explore the inner life of
the protagonist or of the poem; something
at which the text may hint but which is often
not explicitly stated.”Thomas goes on to add:
“In his concertante music, however, he can
fully explore melody and motif, and their
abstract, structural possibilities without being
tied to the narrative shape or psychological
undertow of any text.” And, intriguingly,“Finzi,
who was himself an outsider in so many
ways, may have found in his concertante
works an opportunity to write his equivalent
to Whitman’s Song of Myself. I would offer for
consideration the idea that Finzi’s instrumental soloists are singing of his own inner life in
unusually direct, often painful terms” (p. 122).
There are contributions by Stephen
Banfield (“Finzi centenary lecture;” “Finzi
and Wordsworth;” and “Writing a book on
Finzi”) and Diana McVeagh (“A Farewell Tribute to Joy Finzi”), both of whom produced
exquisite biographies of the composer (see
Banfield, Choral Journal, volume 39/7,85–88
and McVeagh, Choral Journal, volume 48/5,
61– 63). Together with the source book
(called a bio-bibliography) by John Dressler
(reviewed in the Choral Journal, volume 39/2,
57–64), The Clock of the Years complements
these longer and more replete volumes. In
the first of the Banfield essays, the author
encapsulates what was so special about Finzi
and where and how he lived that merits our
attention (p. 8 passim). In the second one, he
explains how and why “Finzi chose to add
his name to the list of Wordsworth’s critical
biographers by interpreting his Ode” and
suggests Finzi’s Italian Sephardic origins as
one stimulus (p. 132 passim). In the last, Banfield recounts the process of authoring his
biography of Finzi and the necessity of writing about music. “Just re-listening to a couple
of pieces on the hi-fi, [I] find myself reacting:
‘Goodness! Does that work really sound like
that? Have I actually conveyed anything at
all about it in my pages of analysis, criticism,
explanation of how it came into being and
where it stands in his output?’ Somehow its
essence, grasped in a moment of listening,
persists in evading capture in verbal argument, and you feel that everything is still to
be said about it. Yet the responsibility is there
and can’t be shirked, for music wouldn’t exist
if we didn’t have a name for it, and we are
stuck with verbal communication, even of art,
whether we like it or not. All over the world
music is not just performed or listened to
but talked about” (p. 215). Although Banfield
is linked to Finzi through his biography, he is
provocative on any topic.
Other outstanding essays are by Christopher Finzi (“Remembering Gerald Finzi”),
Jeremy Dale Roberts (“A composer’s view:
second thoughts”), Andrew Burn (an extract
from Joy Finzi 1907–91: tributes from her
friends), Philip Lancaster (“Lo, the full, final
sacrifice’: An Introduction”), Hugh Cobbe
(“The Correspondence of Gerald Finzi
and Ralph Vaughan Williams”), Paul Spicer
(“Recording the Seven Poems of Robert
Bridges”), and Anthony Boden (“Gerald Finzi
at Three Choirs”).
The title of the anthology is taken from
a Thomas Hardy poem, of course, for it is
with Hardy, together with Traherne and
Wordsworth, that Finzi’s music is most
closely identified.The volume is quite beautiful. The dustcover features photographs (on
the front) of wheat in a field, recalling and
relating eternity to the “orient and immortal
wheat” referred to in Dies natalis and (on
the reverse) of Simon Whistler’s window
at St. James’s Church, Ashmansworth. There
are eight wood engravings (first published
in 1967 in A Point of Departure and on the
New Year cards by Joy Finzi) by Richard
Shirley Smith (the subject of a brief essay
by Jeremy Dale Roberts); three drawings of
Ashmansworth by Rolf Jordan, the editor,
who is professionally an artist and designer;
and, thirty plates that replicate photographs
of the Finzi family and friends over a considerable span of time. The Clock of the
Years is an essential research anthology that
illuminates Finzi’s life and compositions, the
latter of which are part of the imperishable
glory of England’s musical heritage. It is highly
recommended.
Stephen Town,
Book Reviews Editor
71
Third National Conference Yale University November 5-7, 2009
Highlights of the Conference
Combined Collegiate Choir (Works by Lienas, Parola, Monteverdi, O’Regan, Brahms and others)
Vance George, Conducting, Conductor Emeritus of San Francisco Symphony Chorus
SUNY Oneonta Chamber Singers, Timothy Newton, Conductor
Indiana University of Pennsylvania Chorale, James Dearing, Conductor
The Yale Camerata, Glee Club, Philharmonia and Schola Cantorum perform
Symphony #3—Symphony of Meditations
by Aaron Jay Kernis, Pulitzer Prize Winner
Yale University faculty member
Marguerite Brooks, Jeffrey Douma & Masaaki Suzuki, Conductors, Shinik Hahm, Conducting
Lecture, Recitals and Scholarly presentations include
“Rehearsing Renaissance Music,” “The Choir and How to Direct It by Pavel Chesnokov,” “Alternative
German Requiems,” “The Dynamic Relationship between the University Choral Director and the Voice
Faculty,” “Unique Chamber and Opportunities for Choral programs at Liberal Arts Colleges,” “Baroque
Performance Practice” “Programming Birthdays & Cool Commemorations”
Performing Ensembles
California State University (Long Beach) Chamber Choir, Jonathan Talbert, Conductor
Centenary College Camerata, Julia Thorn, Conductor
Colorado State University Chamber Choir, James Kim, Conductor
Harvard University, Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum, Jameson Marvin, Conductor
Mansfield University Concert Choir, Peggy Dettwiler, Conductor
Smith College Glee Club, Jonathan Hirsh, Conductor
University of Maryland Chamber Singers, Edward Maclary, Conductor
University of Missouri University Singers, R. Paul Crabb, Conductor
Utah State University Chamber Singers, Cory Evans, Conductor
Vassar College Women’s Chorus, Christine Howlett, Conductor
The Omni Hotel will serve as the conference hotel and is within walking distance of the Yale campus.
Conference registration, hotel information as well as a complete schedule is available on our website:
www.ncco-usa.org
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www.ncco-usa.org
Recording Reviews
<Lawrence Schenbeck, editor <lschenbe@spelman.edu>
Lukas Foss:The Prairie
Providence Singers,
Boston Modern Orchestra Project
Andrew Clark, conductor
BMOP/sound 1007 (SACD; 2008; 53’ 02”)
While the recent passing of Lukas Foss
(1922– 2009) strikes a sad note for many of
us, the release of this superb recording of The
Prairie serves to both celebrate and elucidate
his unique genius and extraordinary life. Born
Lukas Fuchs in Berlin, Germany, Foss received
his early training as a pianist and composer
with Julius Goldstein
(who, upon emigrating
to the United States,
changed his last name to
Herford and ultimately
became one of the
most significant teachers of conducting and
score study in American history). Foss and
his family fled Germany in 1933, moving first
to Paris, where he studied at the Lyceé Pasteur, and then to the U.S. in 1937.There Foss
was accepted at the Curtis Institute of Music
as a fifteen-year old prodigy, studying piano,
composition (with Randall Thompson) and
conducting (with Fritz Reiner). After earning
diplomas with honors in all three disciplines,
Foss furthered his education with Hindemith
and Koussevitsky at Tanglewood during the
earliest years of its existence.
Foss’s career exploded during the next
decade. In 1953, he succeeded Arnold
Schoenberg as professor of composition
at the University of California Los Angeles,
where he founded the groundbreaking Improvisation Chamber Ensemble.Throughout
his long career, Foss equally embraced the
professional and educational spheres, appearing as guest conductor with many major
orchestras in the United States and abroad
in addition to holding music directorships in
Brooklyn, Buffalo, Jerusalem, and Milwaukee.
He often held concurrent faculty appointments and composer residencies at the
most important American universities and
conservatories.1 Though not known principally as a composer of choral music, Foss’
extensive oeuvre includes several distinctive
choral works, among them the American
Cantata, Behold! I Build An House, De Profundis,
A Parable of Death, Psalms, and the cantata
that launched his career, The Prairie.
Composed largely at Tanglewood in the
early 1940s and premiered in its entirety
under Robert Shaw in 1944, The Prairie reflects Foss’ predilection for amalgamating
diverse compositional techniques. Audible
influences include Debussy’s La Mer, Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, Hindemith’s Cardillac,
Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms, and most
notably Copland’s Billy the Kid. Foss openly
cited Aaron Copland as a major influence at
this point of his compositional development,
describing The Prairie to this writer (and others) as “very Coplandesque” and as a piece
that “started my love for America, my new
country.”2
With its occasionally folksy treatment of
texts from Carl Sandburg’s The Cornhuskers,
The Prairie represents a bygone era. Concerning the textual inspiration of The Prairie,
Foss stated:“The attempt to develop an oratorio style based on the American soil and
spirit is not new, but Carl Sandburg’s epic
poem, it seems to me, offers new possibilities
in its earthy and almost religious approach….
The protagonist, simply, is the prairie, [which]
grows until it becomes the symbol for the
all-embracing principle of growth itself.”3
In spite of its consistent performance
history, especially the often excerpted “Cool
Prayers,” until now the only available recording of The Prairie was a 1976 Turnabout LP
performed by the Gregg Smith Singers, Long
Island Symphonic Choral Association, and
Brooklyn Philharmonia, conducted by the
composer. Three decades later, we finally
have been given an exciting new recording.
The robust and fearless ensemble singing of the Providence Singers, outstanding
orchestral playing of the Boston Modern
Orchestra Project, and collective vocal agility of the soloists, integrated with conductor
Clark’s commitment to the composer, has
yielded a first-rate reading of this pioneering work. Particular sonic highlights can be
found in soprano Elizabeth Weigle’s ravishing
lower register, baritone Aaron Engebreth’s
breathtaking clarity of tone, and Andrew
Clark’s appropriately heroic interpretation.
Besides its artistic triumph, the excellent packaging of this recording—complete
with relevant words from Foss himself and
authoritative notes written by retired longtime Boston Globe chief music critic Richard
Dyer—results in a clear-cut recommendation for immediate purchase.
Sean Burton
Sioux City, Iowa
Toivo Tulev: Songs
Robin Blaze, countertenor
Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir,
Tallinn Chamber Orchestra
Paul Hillier, Director
HMU 807452 (SACD; 2008; 63’ 45”)
Paul Hillier has done some amazing work
73
Recording Reviews
during his career. I had the pleasure of hearing a performance of Arvo Pärt’s Passio at
Symphony Hall in Chicago with Hillier conducting, members of the Hilliard Ensemble
as soloists, and His Majesties Clerkes (now
Bella Voce) as the chorus. Observing Hillier
as he brought out the tenderness and austerity of Pärt’s music while combining it with
an ardent passion when
necessary was to watch
a true master at work.
His association with
the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir
(he is now their permanent director) and
one of the second wave of contemporary
Estonian composers, Toivo Tulev (b. 1958),
completes a circle begun nearly twenty years
ago. Hillier’s clear understanding and deep
affinity for the music of the Medieval period
made him uniquely qualified to champion
the music of Arvo Pärt. And the parallels
between Pärt’s and Tulev’s music are numerous. A composer perhaps more overtly
dramatic then Pärt, Tulev roots his sonority
in overtones, stacking third on third, fourth
on fourth to create choral colors that unfold
in unique and subtle ways.
Sung without a break, the first eight
pieces comprise the Cantique des cantiques
[Song of Songs] for chorus, soloists, and
chamber orchestra. The instrumental en-
Yale University
graduate study in choral conducting
at Yale Institute of Sacred Music and Yale School of Music
degrees offered
Master of Music
Master of Musical Arts
Doctor of Musical Arts
Artist Diploma
Full tuition scholarships for all
admitted students. Additional
merit-based awards available.
with
Marguerite L. Brooks, yale camerata
Jeffrey Douma, yale glee club
Masaaki Suzuki, yale schola cantorum
choral ensembles
Yale Camerata
Yale Glee Club
Yale Schola Cantorum
Battell Chapel Choir
Marquand Chapel Choir
Yale Repertory Chorus
Yale Recital Chorus
guest conductors
2008–10
Simon Carrington
Paul Hillier
Stephen Layton
Nicholas McGegan
Helmuth Rilling
Dale Warland
major works 2009–10
Kernis: Symphony of Meditations
Verdi: Requiem
Kellogg: new commissioned work
Ample podium time with choral
and instrumental ensembles.
selected student
repertoire 2009–10
Brahms: Schicksalslied
Beethoven: Mass in C
Mahler: Songs of a Wayfarer
Stravinsky: Eight Instrumental
Miniatures
Ives: The Unanswered Question
Schönberg: A Survivor from Warsaw
Pärt: De Profundis
Office of Admissions Yale Institute of Sacred Music, 409 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06511
tel 203.432.9753 fax 203.432.9680 · www.yale.edu/ism · ismadmissions@yale.edu
74
semble is an eclectic orchestral palette, part
Britten, part Stravinsky, and part Penderecki:
piccolo, flute, flauto dolce, alto flute, duduk
(a Eurasian double-reed instrument), oboe,
English horn, bassoon, contrabassoon, synthesizer, organ, organo lontano, percussion,
and strings. These performance parameters
may limit performance by many choirs.
The Estonian Philharmonic Chamber
Choir, consisting of seven sopranos (adding
two sopranos for some cuts), six altos, six
tenors, and seven basses, sings with exhilarating intonation and intensity. The tone of the
group is breathtaking, even when stretched
to its utter limits, being required to sing in
extreme vocal ranges with both subtlety and
passion. Some of the solo work here is also
nothing short of astounding.
The last five pieces on the CD use texts
by Thomas Traherne and Kornelius Becker,
and texts from works by Josquin Desprez
and Thomas Morley. The pieces vary in style
and treatment, using a combination of solo
and choral singing with and without accompaniment. The effect is an austere charm,
illuminating the words in the same way
Morten Lauridsen’s Five Madrigals illuminate
the texts of Renaissance poets.
None of these works is for the faint
of heart: the music itself is complex harmonically, and the musicianship needed to
perform these works is of a very high order.
They seem best suited to fine professional
ensembles or the truly excellent college
ensemble. As a listening tool, this music is
profound, full of delightful color and nuance,
compositional flair and skill, with a choir and
soloists who sing with a rare combination of
accuracy and musical integrity.
Rich Brunner
North Hollywood, California
Stella del nostro mar
Cantica Symphonia
Glossa GCD P31905 (2008; 74’ 42”)
Gone are the days when the finest earlymusic ensembles emanated from northern
Europe. Encouraged by their (recorded)
examples, superb groups have sprung up
around the globe, from San Francisco to
Sydney, Australia. Of particular interest are
those who can perform in buildings contemporary with, or even associated with, their
repertoire, which thus can enliven their renditions and—with sensitive engineering—offer the ideal setting to hear Renaissance
repertoire. To excellent Italian groups like
La Venexiana and Delitiae Musicae we may
add Cantica Symphonia,
an ensemble of variable
size depending upon its
repertoire. Founded in
1995 by tenor Giuseppe
Maletto, it has previously
released discs of Dufay and Monteverdi, but
its latest CD gathers Marian motets by various composers throughout Europe. Much
of this anthology dates from the cusp of the
sixteenth century, with multiple motets by
Jean Mouton and Heinrich Isaac, together
with single contributions from Josquin Des
Prez, Francisco de Peñalosa, Ludwig Senfl
and Adrian Willaert. So skillfully selected
are these pieces that, rather than inviting
tedium, they contrast pleasingly and surprise
the listener through the different techniques
they evince.
However, what distinguishes this recording is the inspired use of two modern pieces
specifically written for the four singers of
Cantica Symphonia. These are exquisite
compositions that explore sonorities in a
fashion similar to their Renaissance neighbors, but in a thoroughly modern manner.
They eschew the harsher elements of contemporary composition without resorting to
even a smear of schmaltz. Both composers
are little known in North America, but they
merit further investigation. Carlo Galante,
whose Stella del nostro mar is this disc’s title
track, is a child of northern Italy, like Cantica
Symphonia itself. He is more associated with
opera and ballet scores, but this piece shows
his appreciation for unaccompanied singing.
The other composition is by Yakov Gubanov,
a student of Shostakovich now resident in
the U.S., teaching at the Berklee School of
Music in Boston. His Benedicta et Venerabilis
shows the influence of minimalists such as
Gorecki and Pärt but has a sweetness and
inflection entirely its own. The repetition in
this, the disc’s concluding track, is hypnotic
rather than laborious, and the motet’s eventual resolution one of sheer beauty.
These two modern works reveal the
four voices (soprano, two tenors, and bass)
at their finest; each singer is blessed with a
gorgeous timbre, and would clearly be a joy
to hear on their own. Sometimes such strong
individuals do not make for a satisfying blend,
but what characterizes Cantica Symphonia is
how well matched are the voices, and how
generously they complement one another.
The performances are uniformly satisfying
and display an enviable sensitivity to the
needs and possibilities of each piece. This
is an outstanding group in a crowded field,
both of which facts should gladden any lover
of choral chamber music.
Fortunately, the production values match
the professionalism of the performers. The
accompanying booklet includes all the texts
(translated into four modern languages, including English), an expert essay by Giovanni
Zanovello, a musicologist at the University
of Padua, and several photographs of the
performers, composers, and the recording
sessions. The Spanish record label GLOSSA
invariably produces CD packages that combine elegance and scholarship, and this issue
is no exception. Such releases stave off the
day when music will only be available as
downloads, since advocates of this style of
music and performance will want the visual
and tactile pleasure of owning their own
copies.
Philip Barnes
St. Louis, Missouri
The Road Less Travelled
Phoenix Chamber Choir
Ramona Luengen, conductor
www.phoenixchamberchoir.bc.ca
(2008; 65’ 18”)
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75
Recording Reviews
reputation for an eclectic repertoire and
fine performances. Those not lucky enough
to hear them in person can nonetheless
catch some of their spirit
through several recordings of live performances,
the most recent of which
is culled from a concert
tour of Germany in the
summer of 2008. As ever,
the selections are fascinating, and range from
Hildegard of Bingen to Eric Whitacre, with
nods to their German hosts in works by Engelbert Humperdinck, Rudolf Mauersberger
and Clytus Gottwald (with a Mahler arrangement). In between are found some central
and east European composers, including
Jan Novak, Galina Grigorjewa and Dmitry V.
Smirnov, and extracts from Giles Swayne’s
Missa Tiburtina. Other rarely heard works are
Thierry Machuel’s setting of Rabindranath
Tagore and Esto les digo by Austin (Texas)
composer Kinley Lange. The collection is
rounded off with four arrangements of
popular songs and spirituals that doubtless
served as encores on the concert tour.
Despite being forced to record in a series
of different locations, engineer Don Harder
overcomes any glaring incongruities of
acoustic and allows the listener to consider
the recording as a coherent whole. However,
with that comes perhaps an unanticipated
problem of whether this creates a satisfying
program to listen through from beginning to
end. I rather think not; there are too many
disparate, even quirky, miniatures without
the anchor of a major work; the extracts
from Swayne and Novak don’t fulfill this
need.The title of the disc, quoted from Robert Frost, suggests that it is the very novelty
of these pieces that unifies them, but that
is a something of a stretch! Nonetheless, as
many of us are now accustomed to sample
individual tracks on discs rather than listen
to a complete disc at one sitting, perhaps this
is not too serious a concern. It is certainly
valuable to have many of these selections
available and sung with such feeling.
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Taken individually, some of the tracks
are problematic for reasons that invariably
arise in live performance; while intonation
is generally excellent, there are moments
of edgy singing and some tempi are rushed.
Encores are sometimes better left in the
memory of the audience than immortalized on disc. While the speeds of Nystedt’s
Immortal Bach and Gottwald’s arrangement
of “Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen”
from the Rückert Lieder may have suited the
ambience of a particular live performance,
absent that context, they are robbed of their
mystery and awe, and certainly don’t reflect
their composers’ intentions.
Other moments of utter beauty more
than compensate for these cavils. The excerpts from Novak’s Exercitia Mythologica
are magnificent, as is Swayne’s Dona nobis
pacem. Finally, the singing on Lange’s Esto les
digo approaches perfection, with soprano
Leanne Dalton soaring towards a sublime
conclusion. She provides thirty seconds of
radiance that more than justifies buying this
disc. What must it have been like to hear
her sing it live? This recording at least allows
us to imagine.
recorded in Visitation Catholic Church in
Kansas City, adding an extra richness to a
tone quality often strongly infused with head
voice. Throughout the recording, Octarium
achieves a beautiful blend and color, although
occasionally vowel and intonation issues
come through at higher ranges. The entire
recording consists of unaccompanied music,
and many of the arrangements would be
suitable for superior high school, church, or
college groups. Among the many exciting
selections on the disk, one of the most enticing works is the Leah Hamilton arrangement
of Veni, Veni Emmanuel, which grabs us with
surprising and beautiful harmonies, giving
more depth to a lovely traditional selection.
The obvious musicianship of the group
is at times overwhelming, as in Long, Long
Ago or the Rutter arrangement of The Wexford Carol. It is this musicianship that allows
Poulenc’s difficult motet sequence to come
across successfully. Moving lines are clear and
beautifully phrased and an obvious attention
to the text helps communicate the music.
Matthew Smyth
Norman, Oklahoma
NOTES
1 Readers interested in learning more about Foss
are encouraged to consult Karen Perone’s
Lukas Foss: A Bio-Bibliography (Westport,
CT: Greenwood Press, 1991) for additional
biographical information and source listings.
2 Sean Burton, personal interview with Lukas Foss,
September 8, 2003.
3 Cited in Robert Bagar and Louis Biancolli, The
Concert Companion (New York: McGraw-Hill,
1947), 267–68.
Philip Barnes
St. Louis, Missouri
Hodie
Octarium
Krista Lang Blackwood, artistic director
www.octarium.org
download at DigStation.com
Octarium’s Hodie is a diverse collection
of Christmas songs ranging from exciting
new arrangements of familiar pieces to
challenging staples such as Poulenc’s Motets
pour le temps de Noel. The
wide range and beautiful selection of music on
the recording makes the
disc ideal for any director
looking for a few more
selections for a holiday program.
Octarium, a Kansas City-based professional ensemble, was founded in 2003 by
director Krista Lang Blackwood. Hodie was
77
The King’s Singers
40th Anniversary Collection
SATB divisi
Hal Leonard 08748224
$8.95
www.halleonard.com
In 1993, Hal Leonard released The King’s
Singers 25th Anniversary Jubilee Collection. It
has remained a best seller since then. Now,
there is a new collection that holds similar
promise. Directors who seek first-rate arrangements for their mixed choirs, smaller
close-harmony groups, students of arranging,
and King’s Singers fans should not hesitate
to order this eclectic and beautifully crafted
collection that features many talented arrangers’ works at a very reasonable price.
According to the notes, the choice of
arrangements in compiling this collection
was guided by their most requested arrangements from the past fifteen years. Some of
the selections date from the
group’s earlier history but
are still regularly performed.
Others are more recent.
The genres run the gamut
from folk music to pop
tunes, spirituals, Christmas
arrangements, and even a
Victorian parlor song by Sir Arthur Sullivan.
The notes also include brief arrangement
and performance instructions that give helpful information not only about the origin
of the music, but which King’s Singers CD
features it.
Most of the arrangements are for extensive divisi, particularly in the tenor and
bass parts. The only arrangement for TTBB
exclusively is Sullivan’s “The Long Day
Closes,” which credits only The King’s Singers as the arranger. All others are for mixed
choir. The most elaborate of divisi settings is
Philip Lawson’s arrangement of Billy Joel’s
Lullabye (Goodnight, My Angel), which can be
performed either SATTBB or with an optional SATBB Choir 2 part which is printed
on separate pages, creating an eleven-part
arrangement.
The collection contains a total of 13 arrangements. Of these, three are folk songs,
three are pop music, two are spirituals, two
are Christmas pieces, and two are Beatles
tunes. Arrangers include Philip Lawson, Bob
Chilcott, Daryl Runswick, Peter Knight, John
McCarthy, and Carl Davis.
As one might expect of arrangements
for an unaccompanied group like the King’s
Singers, the part writing includes not just
melodic but rhythmic sounds as well. In Philip
Lawson’s arrangement of “L’Africa,” for example, all manner of unpitched consonants
are required and, even when pitch is notated,
a footnote cautions, “Emphasize the consonant at the expense of the note.” Ensembles
need to be willing to take these demands
seriously. The effort is worthwhile. Learning
to perform these rhythms accurately will pay
generous dividends in other works. Lawson’s
arrangement includes the names of the instruments the singers are to imitate, such as
xylophone, drums, and flute scat.
Vocal ranges are generally conservative.
However, some background parts require
voices to repeat a note for many measures in
high range. For example, Lawson’s “L’Africa”
arrangement places the Tenor I part several
times on a g1 or a1 for seventeen consecutive measures. Conversely, the soprano and
alto parts tend toward the lower part of the
range.Young male singers might find the Bass
II parts in some arrangements a bit too low.
A held D is the lowest note in Carl Davis’s
Rise up, Shepherd, and Follow, but most of the
tessitura is less extreme.
Since there are several arrangers featured in the collection, harmony varies from
relatively straightforward to challenging.
Well-written piano reductions are provided
that outline the harmony clearly. The only
exception is the optional Choir 2 part of
Lawson’s arrangement of “Lullabye” by Billy
Joel, which has no piano reduction.
The King’s Singers 40th Anniversary Collection is sure to be another bestseller. It
provides a wealth of encore material and
unusual repertoire for a variety of occasions.
The arrangements are well within the reach
of any mixed choir wishing to expand its
horizons and delight audiences with music
79
Choral Reviews
from one of England’s finest unaccompanied
groups.
Anthony Antolini
Bowdoin College
Red Geraniums
Lisa Foland
SA, piano
Santa Barbara Music Publishing
$1.60
www.sbmp.com
Lisa Foland has composed a touching setting of a text by New England poet Martha
Haskell Clark (1885–1922.) The performance of this lovely piece is limited to girls’
choirs because the poem begins, “Life did
not bring me silken gowns, Nor jewels for
my hair,” although it is musically suitable for
any children’s choir. The memorable melody
has a folk-like character that supports the
gentle and optimistic poem. Ranges are
not demanding. The well-crafted harmony
and rhythm are very accessible to young
choristers. The poem’s three stanzas are set
to the same melody, which is heard in unison
on the first stanza, then moving gracefully
between the two voice parts on the second
stanza and in unisons and thirds in the final
stanza. Informative biographical information
is given about the composer, but there are
no historical notes about the poet.
This piece has much to recommend it.
The poem is clearly set so that the words
come through easily even if the poem isn’t
printed in a program.The piano accompaniment is not technically demanding and could
be played expressively by a student pianist. It
can be programmed at any time of year and
would not cause objections from those who
wish to keep religion out of schools. One
line reads “And thank God for home-sweet
things” which doesn’t classify the piece as sacred.This piece would be an especially good
addition to a concert featuring American
poetry, women poets, or repertoire about
flowers or nature.
Anthony Antolini
Bowdoin College
Trio from the Magic Flute
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
arranged by Robert Sieving
SSA, piano
$2.35
Music teachers often lament the lack
of popularity and familiarity of opera with
young singers.Yet high schools don’t hesitate
to program Broadway musicals that attract
singers and delight audiences. Robert Sieving’s delightful arrangement of the trio from
Act I, Scene 1 of Mozart’s Magic Flute is a fine
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80
antidote to the problem of opera bashing
among the young.The scene features Tamino,
lost and defenseless in a distant land, being
pursued by a monstrous serpent. As he faints
from fatigue, three ladies who are attendants
of the Queen of the Night rescue him.They
slay the serpent and then vie for the chance
to guard the handsome prince while the
others go to report the news to the Queen.
The arrangement converts the three solo
voice parts into choral parts.
The edition includes a brief but well
written synopsis of the plot but no notes
about Mozart or history of the opera. Since
this information is so easily accessible, one
cannot fault the editors for its absence, except for the fact that there
is plenty of blank space
on the final page where it
could have been included.
Biographical information is
included about the arranger.
He has wisely simplified the
piano reduction, eliminating
most colla parte passages, where the vocal
lines are doubled by the piano in order to
enhance textural clarity. The original German text is given in the front matter with
Sieving’s English translation, and the German
is included in italics beneath the English in
the score. Sieving’s translation is beautifully
crafted, capturing nuances of each phrase
and following the accentuation of the German throughout.
Vocal ranges are well within the grasp of
young voices and would help parry the criticism that operatic writing is too demanding
for teenagers. The piano reduction is less
technically demanding than many of Mozart’s piano works studied by young players
and would offer an enjoyable collaboration
between a young player and singers of the
same age. Although Sieving has published
the arrangement as a choral work, it could
also be performed with a succession of solo
voices drawn from the chorus.
Since Tamino never sings anything in this
scene, the staging possibilities of the arrangement are numerous. For example, a school
athlete with no singing ambitions could be
cast as Tamino and the girls of the chorus
could serenade him.Tamino might be a male
member of the chorus or a teacher willing
to play the role. The arrangement would be
suitable for any concert and a particularly
good piece for a comic encore.
Mozart has a great deal to offer young
musicians and audiences of all ages. Sieving’s
arrangement makes this marvelous music
accessible and might well entice people to
listen to the rest of the opera or seek other
works by this fascinating composer.
Anthony Antolini
Bowdoin College
Voices of Terezin
Aaron Rosenthal
SATB, piano
Frank E. Warren Music Service
$4.00
No website listed
Aaron Rosenthal (b. 1975) has set three
poems written by children who were imprisoned in the Terezin concentration camp
outside of Prague during World War II. The
poems come from a collection titled I Never
Saw Another Butterfly. Rosenthal’s settings
were originally composed for women’s choir
in 1995 and then arranged by the composer
for mixed chorus in 1996. The young poets,
who presumably wrote the originals in
Czech, are credited by name in the front
matter but no acknowledgment is given for
the English translations that Rosenthal used
in his settings.
Rosenthal has impressive credentials
and he writes with sensitivity to the poetry.
The ranges and tessituri are not especially
demanding but his melodies and harmonies
would require careful preparation. He avoids
key signatures and writes accidentals as a
matter of course. Rhythms are moderately
difficult but well within the ability of a college or community chorus. The three poems
are divided into separate movements in the
form of slow-fast-slow. The piano accompaniment is more demanding than the choral
writing and would require a player with
technical proficiency. The voice parts are
largely independent of the accompaniment.
Voices of Terezin certainly should be
considered for any program involving holocaust literature, child poets, or repertoire
devoted to art produced by prisoners and
captives. The text is set in a straightforward
manner, without repetition, and is dramatically powerful in Rosenthal’s moving musical
adaptation.
Anthony Antolini
Bowdoin College
Carol of the Birds
arr. Robert Sieving
SATB, divisi
$1.60
www.sbmp.com
Robert Sieving’s peaceful, unaccompanied arrangement of the traditional Catalonian carol is subtitled “El Cant dels Ocells’”
but gives no information about the origin
of the English translation. The two-stanza
poem is printed in the front matter.The divisi
involve SSATBB and ranges are not problematic. The appealing melody is carried in the
soprano and tenor parts with well-crafted
voice leading in the other parts.
Christmas concerts invariably require
contrasts in repertoire. Sieving’s arrangement is a welcome addition to the quiet
repertoire for this season. For church choirs,
this would be an inspiring selection for that
part of the service where a meditative atmosphere is required.
Sieving’s experienced hand as an arranger is evident in this piece. Attention to
his dynamic markings, which vary from part
to part, add a great deal to the overall effect.
The writing is not difficult but is challenging
for the amateur choir in terms of intonation.
A recording of the arrangement by The
Singers: Minnesota Choral Artists, to whom
the work is dedicated, is available on the
publisher’s Web site.
Four Poems of Robert Herrick
John Crawford
SATB
Frank E. Warren Music Service
$1.95
No Web site listed
John Crawford’s settings of four poems
by Robert Herrick (1591–1674) offer a
lovely musical interpretation of this great
poet’s works. Concerts featuring English
poetry would definitely be enhanced by
this music, which is well within the ability of
college or community choirs.
Crawford’s writing is not demanding in
these settings. Rhythm is fairly easy but intonation would require careful preparation.
The four poems are divided into the form
Moderato-Slow-Vivace-Lento and they work
well as a set.
Anthony Antolini
Bowdoin College
81
Choral Reviews
Unfortunately, the edition offers no
biographical information about the composer and the poetry is not written out. A
performance would almost certainly need
the poetry printed in a program since the
composer does not always present the text
in a form that would be comprehensible to
listeners. Although locating Herrick’s works
would not be difficult, the program preparer
would need to find these texts. The edition
also does not include a piano reduction for
rehearsal. The choral writing is not so difficult that reading open score is out of the
question. But for many conductors, a piano
reduction would greatly facilitate rehearsal
of the work.
Anthony Antolini
Bowdoin College
Psalm 1 How Happy Those
Austin C. Lovelace
SATB, Keyboard
Emerson Music, EECH1038
$1.50
www.emersonmusic.com
This piece, based on the tune “Dove
of Peace,” in William Walker’s Southern
Harmony, 1835, is set to a text by Timothy
Dudley-Smith. Following an eight-bar keyboard (piano or organ) introduction, the
melody is introduced by mostly unison choir.
Stanza two is written for unison men’s voices
to a more florid accompaniment, while the
women (in two parts) sing stanza three, set
to a more chordal accompaniment. The final
stanza is set for three voice parts (soprano,
alto, and men) accompanied by consonant
keyboard writing enhancing the choral part.
A very brief, broadening ending completes
the piece. Presenting few vocal difficulties,
How Happy Those Who Turn Aside will be
enjoyed by an adult church choir at home
with choral pieces from the traditional,
nineteenth-century-like repertoire.
John Buehler
Baker University
See That You Love One Another
Dale Grotenhuis
SATB
Twin Elm Publishing (Emerson Music, agent)
#TE06-05
$1.90
Originally published in 1981, this fine
piece by the highly respected composer
is again available. Though the cover of this
piece states that it is intended for SATB
choir “with piano,” the piano part is notated
for “rehearsal only.” Set very imaginatively
for divisi mixed choir, the 1st Peter text suggests an anthem of general use. Harmonically
consonant and with moderate voice range
requirements, this piece will challenge the
mature church choir able to sustain pitch in
an unaccompanied piece. The divided voice
parts may require a somewhat large choir;
however, a smaller choir, able to manage part
independence, will also find it satisfying. This
excellent piece is highly recommended for
a traditional adult church choir.
John Buehler
Baker University
The Inn
(A Ballad on Lithuanian Folk Songs)
60 years of the USC Thornton Chamber Singers
A two-disk collection of choral music
conducted by Charles Hirt, Rodney
Eichenberger, James Vail, William Dehning,
Paul Salamunovich, and Jo-Michael Scheibe
Call 213-740-7416 or email
uschoral@usc.edu to order your copy of these
historical recordings (CD set : $25).
82
Algimantas Bražinskas
SATB divisi, bar. solo, women’s trio
G. Schirmer/Hal Leonard #50486440, $3.95
Link to pic: http://www.halleonard.com/
item_detail.jsp?itemid=50486440&order=6
&catcode=00&refer=search&type=produc
t&keywords=the+inn+
This clever setting is for the most advanced of college/university or professional
choirs. The subject matter has to do with
drinking and becoming tipsy. Beyond that, it
requires a command of dissonance, varied
tonal centers, and tone clusters that would
cause headaches among all but the most
polished of choral ensembles—something
we have grown to expect from the Baltic
traditions of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia,
where voices are successfully treated like
instruments. The composer, born in 1937
and famous in Lithuanian circles, states: “The
frequent ‘inadvertent’ dissonances in the
writing are intended to reflect the vigorous (if not exactly accurate) singing of the
tavern’s clients.”
There is nothing unusual about the
ranges that are conventional, nor the
changing meters between two-four and
four-four. Eighth-note rhythm predominates
at a tempo marked “Vivo.” The language
offered is only English, translated from the
original Lithuanian, which should be a relief
to American choirs since there are many
difficulties of tonality and texture. Chief
among these is the instantaneous and sudden use of tone clusters, probably to signify
persons becoming tipsy at the inn. These
clusters proceed from a unison D in the
tenors and basses to a four-note cluster of
♮
♯
E ♭, E (basses and tenors) and F and F (altos
and sopranos). The clusters, albeit displaced
over an octave, are sudden, arising out of the
D eighth-note figure, usually on the fourth
beat of the measure.There are also ascending half-step four-note clusters (text: “O, my
head is spinning ‘round”). Finally, at page six,
we get our first triad and semi-tonal passage,
which seems like a great relief.
The form is basically tripartite, with large
sections being delineated by solos and/or
solo ensembles. The first is a baritone solo,
to be performed “rather tipsy” with the choir
performing rhythmic ostinati underneath,
which are half-spoken, half-sung.The second
is by a women’s trio (“I’m drinkin’ brandy so
keep my jug handy”) with individual male
voices shouting phrases like, “Stop him!
He’s leading a grizzly bear! Shoot it! Call the
police!” Both sections are slower and more
tonal before the rhythmic clustered singing
resumes. Toward the end, clusters have as
many as nine to ten notes (after m. 118);
the pace is steady but seems more frantic
because of the increased dissonance, which
penultimately relaxes a bit to four-tone
clusters (“Drink it up, for soon tomorrow
we will pay in pain and sorrow! Whirlin’,
twirlin’, turnin’, burnin’, O the floor is opening below me”). It ends in a four-note split
cluster, followed by a glissando downward
with a shouted “hey.” It paints the picture
of a day in Lithuanian folk life, but is hardly
for the light of heart in terms of pitch skills.
rousing fortissimo divisi. The accompaniment
is relatively easy except for the last two
pages, where it becomes more syncopated
and has thicker chords. This does have the
phrase “There must be a God somewhere,”
so it might present sacred music problems
for some public schools. It is also suitable for
church groups who can handle the concluding divisi. There is an optional high A♭ for divisi
soprano at the end.
Donald Callen Freed
Alpine TX
Donald Callen Freed
Alpine Texas
Rise Up, Shepherd
Song of Freedom
arr. Victor C. Johnson
SATB, piano
Heritage Choral Series/Lorenz 15/2235H
$1.85
Accomp. CD available www.lorenz.com
Link to pic: http://www.lorenz.com/resultsadv.aspx?page=1&rpp=30&title=Song+of+
Freedom&itemid=&pod=False&pop=False
This is an arrangement
of two traditional spirituals,
“Oh, Freedom” and “Over
My Head,” and was commissioned by the Austin
Academy Choir for their
2006 TMEA convention performance in San Antonio. Ranges are traditional to conservative for a high school or
church ensemble. The first section in “Oh,
Freedom” in unison F major with the usual
syncopation associated with that tune. The
second section is unaccompanied, beginning
with the text, “No more moanin’.” While
traditional in harmony, it does use some
descending half-steps in the parts with resulting secondary dominants and borrowed
chords, and may require concentration in
order to stay in tune. Following the second
section ”Over my head” is introduced, first
in two-part SA followed by TB, returning to
a four-part accompanied “And before I’d
be a slave” from “Oh, freedom.” Two-part
alternates with four-part again in G major,
with the final section in A♭, first beginning
with a two-part canon and ending with a
arr. Taylor Davis
SATB , piano
Choristers Guild CGA1107, $1.85
choristersguild.org
text for this joyful anthem by Texas choral
music educator Laura Farnell.
A four-measure, unaccompanied (optional accompaniment), fanfare-type phrase
introduces the piece. A reoccurring quarter
note triplet pattern serves as a unifying
rhythmic element of the choral parts, which
are set in 4/4 meter. While the vocal rhythms
are straightforward, the brief piano interludes have mixed and irregular meters—4/4,
7/8, 5/8, 2/4.
The composer suggests a brisk tempo
range of 120 –32 for the quarter note
beat. A ritardando emphasizes the tonality
transition from E ♭ major to F major before
returning to the original tempo for the final
“A” section.
The tessitura of soprano I is approximately one octave from the tonic while
soprano II and alto tessituri are one octave
The rhythm is what makes this setting
unique. Set in predominately 7/8 meter with
sections in 4/4, this will give the Christmas
season a lilt. The predominant pattern for
singers is 2+2 + 2 +1 in 7/8, with a tenor/
bass rhythmic ostinato on the text “Rise
up, shepherd and …” . Alto and soprano
enter over the ostinato in unison; the key
is D major so the low A might be low for
the sopranos. The rhythm’s constant drive
is accentuated by the intervals in the men’s
ostinato part. The piano adds to the effect,
providing consistent moving rhythm, especially in the 4/4 sections. Everything comes
to a climax as “rise up” is reiterated following
the ostinato, in quartal harmony, followed by
an additional final “rise up” in unison. This is
easy to medium in difficulty, and is a refreshing setting of traditional text and tune.
Donald Callen Freed,
Alpine, Texas
I Will Lift Up My Voice
Laura Farnell
SSA, piano
Hal Leonard # 08746972, $1.70
halleonard.com
Adaptations from Psalms 30, 96, and 100
(along with alternative lyrics) provide the
83
Choral Reviews
from the dominant. The melodic movement
is primarily scalar and the limited skips are
narrow and mostly tonic.Though the texture
is homophonic throughout, there are occasional countermelody and descant phrases
that add interest.
Among the musical concepts and skills
that could be taught through score study
are rondo form (with variation on the
theme), chordal harmony, homophonic
texture, mixed meter, and triplets. While
this composition would be appropriate for
an advanced middle school or intermediate
high school girls’ choir and would serve as
an effective festival piece or concert opener,
it could also be used as a call to worship in
a church setting.
LuAnn Holden
Cleveland, Tennessee
Andrew Carter Carols
New Collection of
12 mixed-voice
Christmas titles from
Banks Music Publications
www.banksmusicpublications.co.uk
www.andrewcarter.org
84
The Turtle Dove
John Purifoy (arr.)
SSA, piano with optional cello
Hal Leonard # 08746832
$1.70
The English folk tune from which The
Turtle Dove derives is a variant of The True
Lover’s Farewell. Another alternate title is
Ten Thousand Miles. Cecil J. Sharp found nine
variants of the folk tune when he conducted
field study of English folk songs that had
survived in remote regions of the southern
Appalachian Mountains. John Purifoy, ASCAP
composer and arranger, living in Knoxville,
Tennessee, chose four poetic verses to set
in an A A’ B A” form.
The arrangement begins with an accompanying figure in the piano, which is intermittently repeated under sustaining vocal lines.
The cello imitates the melodic figure as a
unifying background theme throughout the
piece. Unison voices introduce the plaintive melody in A minor and then proceed
into two and then three part harmonies
in homophonic texture. As a departure
from the traditional tune, Purifoy provides
newly composed material for stanza three.
A modulation to B-minor precedes the final
stanza that compares the narrator and a
turtle dove.
The cello part, which is printed separately on the back page of the octavo, is also
notated on the top staff of the vocal score.
The Soprano I and II parts, printed on the
same staff, have tessiture
that lie within the staff lines.
The alto tessitura ranges
an octave from the tonic.
Altos must use caution to
maintain the appropriate
vocal stylistic qualities of folk
music, especially where the pitches remain
below the staff for several measures.
The folksong is set in 4/4 meter to follow the natural flow of the poem, and the
arranger suggests the quarter note pulse
be set at 84 beats per minute. The pensive
character of the piece is achieved through
the melodic line itself as well as the tonality,
the harmonies of the piano accompaniment,
and the timbre of the cello.
This beautiful arrangement (also avail-
able in SATB and SAB voicing) provides
opportunities for the choir to fully express a
flowing musical line through sensitivity to the
text, artful dynamic contrasts, and delicate
tempo changes.
LuAnn Holden
Climbin’ Up the Mountain, Children!
Rollo Dilworth (arr.)
Three-part treble, piano
Hal Leonard # 08745954
$1.70
Rollo Dilworth has provided an interesting arrangement of the African American
spiritual, Climbin’ Up the Mountain, Children!
In the performance notes, Dilworth informs
us that the piece “contains both traditional
and new material in a style that borrows
from both the spiritual and gospel genres.”
After a three-measure piano introduction, the vocal parts enter (III, II, and then
I) in a layered-parts technique, each singing
a distinctive rhythmic and melodic ostinato
at mezzo-forte.This polyphonic choral section builds to a unison statement of the
traditional chorus’ opening melody. Part II
declares the verse while Parts I and II (moving in parallel fifths) punctuate the melody
with a chromatic and syncopated phrase
of “climbin’ up.” After a repeat back to the
choral entrance and the performance of
stanza two, the arrangement progresses in
gospel-style with optional handclaps. The
tonality modulates from the original key of G
major upward by half steps to A major and
continues to build in intensity and dynamics
to the end.
The tessitura is a comfortable dominant
octave span for Part I. Only
for the last chord does the
arranger write a divisi requiring an A2. The tessiture of
Parts II and III lie between d
and b flat—the commonly
used flattened third.
The traditional spiritual
is set in 2/4 meter with a moderato (𝅗𝅥 = ca.
63) tempo. The energetic character of the
piece is achieved through sixteenth-note
rhythmic patterns and syncopation, modulations with increasing dynamics, and supporting piano accompaniment.This arrangement
provides the basis for teaching many musical
concepts and skills to a young choir such as
blues notes, symbolism and word painting,
texture, form, compositional techniques, and
independent singing.
LuAnn Holden
and oboe, the obligato parts
are well written and could
be easily substituted with
available C instruments. The
harmonies are two-part and
easy four-part writing and
are approachable for any church choir of
modest ability.
Jerry Ulrich
Atlanta, Georgia
Cedit, Hyems [Be Gone,Winter!]
Lirum Lirum
Abbie Betinis
SATB accompanied
G. Schirmer #50486492 (includes flute part)
$1.95
Thomas Morley/David Giardiniere
Available in SSAB (15/2261H) and
SSATB (15/2247H)
Heritage Choral Series
$1.95
www.lorenzo.com
Cedit, Hyems is a marvelous setting of
two Medieval Latin texts. The words mix
sacred and secular imagery, combining a
Prudentius hymn of Christ’s
coming with an excerpt
from Carmina Burana. The
musical setting is rhythmic
and inventive, using changing meter and speaking to
emphasize the forcefulness
of the Latin. With a modestly challenging
flute part, this is a very accessible Dale
Warland commission accessible to a good
high school chorus.
Jerry Ulrich
Atlanta, Georgia
In Thanksgiving, Let Us Praise Him (with
“Now Thank We All Our God”)
arr. Lloyd Larson
SATB (Available for SAB)
Brookfield Press #08745965
$1.80
Lloyd Larson has produced a lovely
arrangement of the traditional hymn tune
Nettleton (“Come Thou Fount of Every
Blessing”) using a text by the modern
Gospel songwriter Claire Cloninger. This
arrangement also includes an excerpt
from the well-known Crüger melody Now
Thank We All Our God. Arranged for flute
quiem combines traditional elements found
in the musical settings of Fauré and Rutter,
and new textual ideas found in Eastern
Orthodox rituals and in passages from the
An imaginative arranger has the ability to
use time-honored material
in a fresh and interesting
manner. David Giardiniere
has fashioned an uncomplicated and successful
edition of this traditional
Morley madrigal. Using
recorders and hand drum (parts available
from the publisher), he has substituted a
sacred text celebrating the shepherds arrival in Bethlehem, the visit of the Magi, and
the Nativity scene. The baritone part of
the SSAB version makes this arrangement
an excellent choice for choirs with limited
male voices.
Jerry Ulrich
Atlanta, Georgia
For Us the Living: A Requiem
Alfred V. Fedak
SATB, organ, opt. orch.
Selah Publishing Co.
440-820
$9.75
www.selahpub.com
Alfred V. Fedak, a composer of numerous
hymn tunes and octavos, has produced his
first major work in For Us the Living. This re-
85
Choral Reviews
Apochrypha. Though composed as a concert
work, the piece possesses a great deal of
liturgical value and could conceivably be
used in a worship setting.
Each movement of the work reveals
the composer’s ability to create beautiful
melodies (some based in plainsong), rich
harmonies, colorful orchestral effects, innovative counterpoint, and intense emotion with
his chosen texts.
The opening Sentence, sung in English,
introduces melodic material that will recur
during the final measures of the Valediction,
bringing the work full circle as a representation of a life cycle. The
lyrical Introit leads into a
Kyrie eleison that clearly
draws its inspiration from
Gregorian chant; both of
these movements rely on
the traditional Latin texts.
In the next movement, Psalm 23 is set in
English. The simplicity of the opening lines
allows the text to speak clearly. The drama
comes in the middle section (“the shadow
of death”), reaching its climax at “your rod
and your staff, they comfort me” through its
intense chromaticism.
Written in triple meter, the percussive
Sanctus introduces a new energy in the
middle of the work. By contrast, the Benedictus resumes the beautiful lyricism of earlier
movements. The solo aria, Pie Jesu, accompanied by harp in the orchestral version, is
really more of a duet between the soprano
and the solo violin. The gentleness of the
melodic line recalls a lullaby, praying that the
departed may sleep in peace.
Fedak introduces the Agnus Dei with an
eight-measure chaconne, which reinforces
the sense of the text as a litany. The middle
section moves to B♭ Major before returning
to the chaconne figure to close the work
with a slight textual twist. Instead of using
the traditional text of Dona nobis pacem
(grant us peace), the composer changes the
text to Dona nobis requiem (grant us rest),
underscoring the work’s real intent as stated
in the title, a prayer for us, the living.
Valediction, the farewell, opens with a
beautiful four-part chorale, moves into a
duet between the women and the men, and
comes back to the hymn-like style to close
with a gentle, serene Amen.
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86
The choral writing lies comfortably within
normal ranges; Fedak knows how to write
for church choirs. Occasional three-part
divisi for the female and male voices occurs
in nearly every movement, but is counterbalanced by an abundance of unison writing.
Although the rich orchestration for paired
winds, horns, harp, strings and organ, the
vocal score features an extremely accessible
organ reduction for use in smaller settings.
Additionally, according to the composer’s
notes, movements may be performed
separately.
Fedak’s requiem will prove to be an
extremely useful and accessible work for
church and community choirs.The accompanying compact disc of the first performance
is well performed and serves as a useful
guide to tempi, registration, and vocal color.
Steven Young
Bridgewater, Connecticut
He Comes as King
Patrick M. Liebergen
SATB, keyboard, trumpet in B ♭
Exaltation (The Lorenz Corporation)
# 10/3688L
$1.95
He Comes as King is a joyous setting of
the tune “Macht Hoch Die Tür” with the
trumpet part included in the choral score.
The piece has three stanzas, each with a
slightly different treatment. Stanza one is basically two parts—women against men, with
the exception of four parts at the cadence.
Stanza two is four parts unaccompanied for
the first half of the stanza, but the second
half features accompaniment. Following a
brief four-measure interlude, stanza three
assigns SATB unison on the melody, with a
high voice descant, with the restatement of
the last phrase, “He is the mighty Lord! The
King of all adored!” and the final shout of
“Sing hosanna!” finishes the piece.
Jubilant and energetic writing joins the
joyous keyboard (organ) part to complete
this piece. This is a welcome addition to the
repertoire for Palm/Passion Sunday, and is
well within the scope of the average church
choir. In fact, He Comes as King will find a
large following simply because of the limited
rehearsal time required to perform it. A
competent high school trumpet player will
add that festive touch.
He Comes as King is
brief enough (2’35”) so as
to serve as a Choral Introit
for Palm/Passion Sunday.
Liebergen’s piece is sure to
find a place in many church
music libraries!
Steven R. Gibson
Franklin, Virginia
We Walk by Faith
Joseph M. Martin
SATB, piano (optional brass and timpani
parts available from publisher, 30/2339L)
Exaltation (The Lorenz Corporation) #
10/3693L
$1.95
The form of We Walk by Faith is A A B
A C, with the Landas tune appearing only
in the C section. The piece begins with the
women introducing the theme, with parts
only at the cadence point. The second A
is presented in canon form, with women
beginning the canon. Four-part harmony
concludes that section and sets up the B
section with its chromatic progressions.
This piece’s overall effect is of quiet
confidence and Martin’s lush choral writing
amplifies the text nicely. The piano accompaniment, though not difficult, requires a
perceptive player with careful pacing for
maximum effect. The voice leading provides
no surprises and stays within the acceptable
ranges for all parts.
This piece would appeal to the adult or
youth church choir and fits nicely into the
worship service. Though not difficult, care
should be taken with phrasing and dynamics.
We Walk by Faith is a well-crafted piece,
singable and very useful. I believe that this
piece will make its way into many church
music libraries!
Steven R. Gibson
Franklin, Virginia
Requiem (vocal score)
Mack Wilberg
SATB, (piano reduction)
Orchestration (rental only, available from
C.F.Peters, www.edition-peters.com)
3 flutes (flute 3 doubles piccolo); 2 oboes
(double 2 English horn); 2 clarinets in Bb; 2
bassoons; 4 horns in F; celeste (Glockenspiel
in absence of celeste); harp; piano; organ (optional); violin I; violin II; viola; cello; double bass
Oxford University Press, ISBN #978-0-19380454-8
$11.95
www.oup.com
The Requiem is set into seven sections
and contains both traditional texts and
those chosen by the composer, beginning
and ending with cries for peace and rest,
“requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et
lux perpetua luceat eis.” Of particular interest is the juxtaposition of Latin and English
texts, just as John Rutter did in his landmark
Requiem in 1986.
The choral parts are moderate in difficulty, but require careful attention to tuning,
especially in “O nata lux” where the harmonies are extremely tight. Dr. Wilberg has
combined melody and harmony in a manner
that is word painting at its best.
The orchestral scoring is reserved and
restrained and is suggestive of the orchestral
scoring in the Requiem of Gabriel Fauré. The
score relies on a full compliment of strings,
with woodwinds and horns used for additional tonal color. Even the harp, piano, organ,
and celeste are used only as accents and
more sparingly than horns and woodwinds.
Wilberg’s Requiem is a welcome addition
to the Requiem literature and will make its
way into the repertoire of church, community and collegiate choirs. This will become
a work that is much beloved and I highly
recommend it.
Steven R. Gibson
Franklin, Virginia
by
Paul Brandvik
Author of
The Compleet
Madrigal Dinner Booke
This year make the
RENAISSANCE COME ALIVE
At your University, High School,
Middle School or Church
TWENTY-EIGHT DIFFERENT SCRIPTS
EACH SCRIPT INCLUDES:
ALL DIALOGUE:
Greetings, Toasts, Festivities, Concert,
and Farewell
HUMOROUS RENAISSANCE SKIT
(MASQUE)
REPERTOIRE SUGGESTIONS
Ceremonial Music and Concert
For more information including synopses
and cast lists for each script, sample pages
and order forms please visit us at:
Division Conference Registration Online now!
Visit www.acda.org
www.madrigaldinner.com
knight-shtick press
Box 814
Bemidji, MN 56619-0814
218/586-2270
madrigaldinner@madrigaldinner.com
A Division of EXTREMELY LTD.
87
Choral Reviews
ACDA Advocacy Resolution
WHEREAS, the human spirit is elevated to a broader understanding
of itself through study and performance in the aesthetic arts, and
WHEREAS, serious cutbacks in funding and support have steadily
eroded state institutions and their programs throughout our
country,
BE IT RESOLVED that all citizens of the United States actively
voice their affirmative and collective support for necessary funding at the local, state, and national levels of education and government, to ensure the survival of arts programs for this and future
generations.
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typed, double-spaced pages. Referenced material should be indicated by superscript and end notes. Any artwork and a one- to
two-sentence professional identification of the author should
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to <choraljournal@acdaonline.org>.
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and
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66
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27
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56
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33
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84
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49
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22
32
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54
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65
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80
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28
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25
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61, 86
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10
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38
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IFC, 58
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87
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36
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24
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73
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40
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72
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46
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50
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68
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55
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76
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78
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23
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70
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45
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41
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64
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71
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39
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World Symposium on Choral Music

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