Old and New in choral sounds

[DracoM]

Two or three years ago I was in Monsarrat and heard the choir.

Prompted by that memory and today's R3 Holy Week celebration and hearing the choir, it struck me how reminiscent of yesteryear in terms of 'boy-sound' this choir is. Fine in itself in many nways, but what struck me was the rounded, floated tone, that characteristic warmth of chest and middle voice, little consonantal punctuations / shape to give drama to the language, nothing as stratospheric in terms of melodic line compared to the renaissance English school, long breathed stream of carefully manicured sound in front of very discreet men's voices, and pretty slow tempi, and all wrapped in that strange, comforting acoustic - the wide, almost conch shell series of stalls they sing from throwing the sound towards some focal point. There are a surprising number of boys who sing - anything from 30 -50 at any one outing, yet that is not the effect they have in the space at all.

Listening back to much earlier recordings of church music in UK, you get the same muted, blended sound, with little blaze and assertion that seems prevalent today.

[decantor]

I have never visited Montserrat, but certainly the Escolania have a very distinctive sound - you make a fair shot, Draco, of describing it in your post. However, if your "blaze and assertion" remark betrays a twinge of regret, I do not share it. There is room for all sorts: in UK we span (I suppose) Westminster CC to Chichester CC, and in Europe Escolania to Tolz. If it works for the building and the repertoire, the variety is surely welcome. It is true, none the less, that few boys' units can match the mid-range richness of these Spaniards.

Personally, I felt that much of the music from Montserrat today lost its sting from the very slow tempi you mention. It was not that the choir could not sustain its lines, but rather that the music lost its rhythmical dimension. But I was impressed by the brand new work from the choir's director, Bernat Vivancos. The choirs did well, the treble soloist did brilliantly with his challenging central role - and the two organs almost ruined my loudspeakers!