The Choir - Last straw

[jean]

None of the others, though. Wasn't that the point?

[Pulcinella]

Very occasionally, the BBC Singers do seem (do I have to add to me?) to produce a sound that is different from their usual instantly recognisable one.
An instance is their Bach Motets, issued as Volume IV, Number 8, with the BBC Music Magazine, where they are conducted by Stephen Cleobury.
This is one of very few of their recordings that I can bear to listen to (which is handy since I am singing in two of them later this term, and have been acquainting myself with them without the need for a different recording).
It would indeed be interesting to know if Cleobury had a different rehearsal technique or insistence on style.
Perhaps the make-up of the choir just happened to be different that day?

[Pulcinella]

And I'm the most guilty by mentioning them in message 115!

Sorry to have diverted the thread.

[Cockney Sparrow]

The only performance of the BBC SIngers I can recall enjoying in a broadcast, in recent years was when Gareth Malone made a TV doc on choral singing (you know, fill out, thinly, an hour of BBC4 air time, in house, and call it arts programming).
My enjoyment was purely for entertainment - the singers plainly looked as though there was a terrible smell from the drains.......

Maybe in a modern piece, one to a part, or live, I don't know. But over the radio they do sound like soloist cats fighting to get out of the contracted (and glad for it) choral sack).

[Gabriel Jackson]

<< a very straight, "non-vibrato" sound is what they want to hear (particularly from the women) but to my mind this can be very limiting. You cannot sing really quietly, or really loudly, if you sing like that >>

OK, well - and it is perhaps only a very tiny point barely worth attention - my first inclination is to say that the statement quoted above is demonstrable cobblers. Girls / boys / women singers do both every day of the week on and off record.

If you think it is demonstrable cobblers, then your idea of really quiet and really loud must be very different from mine.

I have also begun to wonder idly over years of listening if maybe when the BBC Singers have new / different conductors, it is THEY rather than the conductor who are in charge. House style quietly asserts itself? After all a conductor who appears with them or any ensemble relatively irregularly simply cannot do much about shaping sound to any radical degree - if of course he/she thinks that is necessary. It begs the question that if a conductor DOES think the BBCS should be radically changed maybe they never get asked in the first place?? Conductors move on like ships in the night, but the singers are the core who remain. Just a thought.

I would like to think that making music is a more collaborative process than anyone simply being "in charge". I don't know where this idea of "house style" comes from but, leaving aside that all the conductors I've worked with with the BBC Singers have plenty of ideas about all aspects of the music including sound(s), this paragraph presumes that the sound(s) of the group need to be changed. Why?

[Gabriel Jackson]

None of the others, though. Wasn't that the point?

Yes it was!

[Gabriel Jackson]

Instead of dancing to GJ's tune, might it be nice for us to get back to The Choir? Yes, we're all guilty.................

Oh please!! Who brought it up?

[Gabriel Jackson]

I happen not to like Maria Callas's voice, though I admire her portrayal of Tosca.
She too will have sung to capacity audiences and received standing ovations.
Does this say anything other than different people like (enjoy/accept) different things?

No it doesn't. But I am sure you would agree that not everyone shares your dislike of Callas's voice, which was my point about capacity audiences and standing ovations.

I would take great exception to someone telling me that I SHOULD like a particular performance or style; I can make my own mind up about that.
Equally, I would hope that I would never tell anyone that they SHOULDN'T like a particular performance or style; they too can make their own mind up.
But what I MIGHT do is choose a different performance, and explain (possibly even by reasoned argument) why I find it preferable.
Isn't that what Building a Library does?

I have repeatedly tried to explain why I think the BBC Singers are a great choral group. I don't expect anyone to be persuaded by this. But I don't understand the need to rubbish them so routinely, usually in the same boring terms and, worse, to repeatedly allege things about them which aren't true, as some do.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

What are you talking about? None of those groups existed in the 1960s.

Now don't be pedantic. I was referring to the BBC Singers. The comparison choirs came upon the scene later.

[french frank]

I'll probably (quite rightly ) be ignored because I know nothing about choirs, and am not overly keen on choral music beyond the medieval/Renaissance repertoire. But it seems to me that, in a general way, there is the liturgical repertoire, associated with the cathedral choirs, the early repertoire which is also associated with the various ensembles like, in the UK, the Tallis Ss and The Sixteen, and thumping big works associated with large choral societies.

Where do the Singers fit in best? I heard them in Bristol singing, if I remember, a piece by Edward Cowie, presumably written for them. They were great in that. Is that the kind of repertoire that suits them, and is there just not enough modern repertoire for smaller choirs to sing?

[DracoM]

Or is it too difficult to be sung by more than the most pro ensembles?

The BBC Singers are usually said to have an unrivalled reputation in singing very contemporary repertoire, a lot of which I fear, rarely, gets out into general use because of its very difficulty. So the BBC Singers must be a lifeline for composers of that repertoire?

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Where do the Singers fit in best? I heard them in Bristol singing, if I remember, a piece by Edward Cowie, presumably written for them. They were great in that. Is that the kind of repertoire that suits them, and is there just not enough modern repertoire for smaller choirs to sing?

I'm quite sure there is. But modern choral music is stifled by our ongoing problem of people falling over themselves trying to be "accessible". So many excellent choirs spend a disproportionate amount of time on Karl Jenkins and arrangements od popular songs and other Mickey Mouse music. At least no-one can accuse the BBC Singers of this.

[Honoured Guest]

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[Eine Alpensinfonie]

As ever, HG, you miss the point. My comments were aimed at the large number of otherwise excellent choirs who pepper their programmes with ABBA, Queen and similar. But I accept your excuse.

[Gabriel Jackson]

I'll probably (quite rightly ) be ignored because I know nothing about choirs, and am not overly keen on choral music beyond the medieval/Renaissance repertoire. But it seems to me that, in a general way, there is the liturgical repertoire, associated with the cathedral choirs, the early repertoire which is also associated with the various ensembles like, in the UK, the Tallis Ss and The Sixteen, and thumping big works associated with large choral societies.

Where do the Singers fit in best?

There is now an enormous chamber choir repertoire which encompasses, as well as Renaissance music, Baroque music, the whole Romantic repertoire, a vast amount of 20th-century music - from all over the globe, of course, and I would say that one of the BBC Singers' strengths is that they do it all.

I heard them in Bristol singing, if I remember, a piece by Edward Cowie, presumably written for them. They were great in that. Is that the kind of repertoire that suits them, and is there just not enough modern repertoire for smaller choirs to sing?

I would imagine Edward's piece was very hard, which is usually the case, so probably the preserve of groups like the BBC Singers and the European radio choirs.