Choral music and Radio 3's priorities

[jean]

That is a pretty standard starting point when you're writing for nonprofessional choirs isn't it?

It's exactly what Vox Humana suggested, which you thought cynical!

[Gabriel Jackson]

Cynically or not, Karl Jenkins is on record as saying he puts the more difficult stuff in the orchestral parts and keeps the vocal parts very simple.

I don't think that is cynical in itself. Most choral/orchestral pieces have easier vocal parts than instrumental ones (excepting works like the B Minor Mass, "Missa solemnis" and "The Vision of St Augustine"...). What is cynical, in my view, is that the music Karl Jenkins now writes is an outgrowth of his music for advertising, i.e. music whose purpose is to sell something. He is a prime example of a musician who, earlier in their career, made music that was imaginative, distinctive and creative and, either in pursuit of commercial success or in response to having acheived it, now churns out undistinguished, boring, pointless music by the yard. Philip Glass is another.

[Richard Barrett]

It's exactly what Vox Humana suggested, which you thought cynical!

No it isn't. It is neither what VH suggested, nor cynical, to try to find an idiomatic way of working with a resource like an amateur choir, just as with a professional orchestra or a virtuoso soloist.

[jean]

I'm sorry, but I don't see much difference between

...I suspect they do it because they enjoy people enjoying their music...

and

...to try to find an idiomatic way of working with a resource like an amateur choir....

[Richard Barrett]

I don't see much difference

really??? I don't see any similarity!

[jean]

Don't you think that 'working with an amateur choir' might involve some 'enjoyment' of the music you produced together on the part of both of you?

Actually, I find the iimplication that an 'amateur choir' is a special sort of musical entity with limited capacity a bit patronising, though it's been suggested here, not least by me, that they're less capable of tackling demanding music than they used to be.

How far that is the result of the availability of music composed with their special limitations in mind I couldn't say.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Re Rutter and Jenkins, I think the two are poles apart, even though both are widely accepted by audiences. KJ's Armed Man, for example, is listener friendly, but deadly dull to sing, whereas Rutter's is finely crafted and interesting to sing. Whether or not you like the results is just a matter of personal opinion.

[jean]

I think the difference is that Rutter has a much wider range than Jenkins, and some of what he writes seems to me to be musically worthwhile.

I've heard Jenkins described as Rutter without the tunes.

What about Gorecki?

[Richard Barrett]

Don't you think that 'working with an amateur choir' might involve some 'enjoyment' of the music you produced together on the part of both of you?

Actually, I find the iimplication that an 'amateur choir' is a special sort of musical entity with limited capacity a bit patronising, though it's been suggested here, not least by me, that they're less capable of tackling demanding music than they used to be.

Of course working with any musicians at all would, I hope, lead to all parties getting something out of the experience. Making music is essentially a collaborative activity. I would hope (following on from ff's last comment) that "enjoyment" is only a part of it, rather than the main reason for doing it.

At no point did I intend to imply that an amateur choir is "a special sort of musical entity with limited capacity". Like any other musical medium, it has characteristics which composers need to bear in mind, like not writing the Bb below middle C for a flute, or not assigning (in tonal music) a low tonic of an orchestral minor triad to a loud bassoon (since its fifth partial two octaves and a major third higher is particularly strong). Personally I prefer not to see such characteristics in terms of limitations but in terms of opportunities, like (to name something I've just been working with) the diatonic nature of the concert harp - instead of bemoaning that it can't play highly chromatic music, one could see this as a chance to reconceive diatonic harmony and produce a result which couldn't be achieved by other means. Working with nonprofessional musicians, as I have done to some extent though not with choirs, is not a question of tailoring the music to perceived limitations but of focusing on points of unique potential. One of the most inspiring examples for me is Cardew's The Great Learning which involves groups of performers of all levels of musical ability including "none", and succeeds by creating a level playing-field where the amateurs and professionals taking part are not in a position of advantage or disadvantage relative to one another.

[DracoM]

Cardew's The Great Learning. Any link to that?

[ahinton]

In answer to ardcarp's question, there will always be composers who work with those parameters in mind, with or without "compromising their integrity", and there will always be those who don't. There seems to me something very cynical about the way people like Jenkins and Rutter and Whitacre go about their work, no doubt partly because I know that if I were to sit down and try to write something like that, it could only be for cynical reasons. and I certainly regard filling a "gap in the market" as a cynical reason to compose music. If that's all it means to a composer, why bother at all?

In response to your post, Vox Humana wrote
"To earn money? To earn public appreciation? I suspect they do it because they enjoy people enjoying their music - which many unquestionably do. I don't think the reason need be cynical."

The problem here is perhaps that, whilst VH has a point, what you write is absolutely to the point. OK, this kind of thing doesn't always have to be done from motives that are entirely and solely "cynical" per se; however, if the composer just does it for the money and/or with a view to eliciting easy approbation from a largely lazy public that "knows what it likes" (or what it's told to like) and doesn't really want to be challenged - or even to be encouraged to apply all of its concentrative faculties - in other words, the kind of public that's largely satisfied as long as it's being "entertained" - then a certain kind of cynicism cannot be too far behind. I'm not necessarily suggesting that "people like Jenkins and Rutter and Whitacre" place little or no emphasis on writing the kind of music that they themselves want to hear, but "filling a gap in the market" is, of course, the very opposite of a reason to compose music; I'm unsure in any case that there is such a "gap", given the cartloads of stuff already there to fill what might otherwise be one!

If I may say so, I imagine that the reason why you wouldn't "sit down and try to write something like that" is not just because you would regard it as merely a market-satisfying exercise and therefore not the kind of thing with which a composer worthy of the name should be wasting time but also because the result would almost certainly not be something that you would personally want to hear so, as you rightly ask, "why bother at all?"...

[jean]

Cardew's The Great Learning. Any link to that?

The concept is wholly admirable, but possibly for political rather than musical reasons.

[ahinton]

Isn't part of the answer that for a lot of people 'enjoyment' is related to relaxation and taking things easy; not a high level of engagement, commitment, hard work, pushing themselves. Many people enjoy listening to Classic FM rather than Radio 3. Compare the 'popularity' of the two.

Can't argue with that! (not that I'd wish to)...

As to the capabilities of members of amateur choirs, one factor that seems only to have been touched on peripherally is the question of sight-reading ability which, for most people, in inevitably linked to the nature and extent of music education that they will have received when at school; if funding for this is continually to be reduced or removed, it will become ever-incresingly difficult to find sufficient choir members with the kind of musical background that will enable them to tackle anything even remotely challenging, making more and more amateur choirs dependent upon people who have been privately educated to sing or play a musical instrument. Depressing? I should say so!

[Richard Barrett]

The concept is wholly admirable, but possibly for political rather than musical reasons.

Which means...?

I didn't link to that recording because (as Bryn, who took part, will confirm) it doesn't represent the work very well, consisting of somewhat inadequate versions of two of its seven parts. The score is fairly easy to get hold of.

[Gabriel Jackson]

Actually, I find the iimplication that an 'amateur choir' is a special sort of musical entity with limited capacity a bit patronising, though it's been suggested here, not least by me, that they're less capable of tackling demanding music than they used to be.

Arguably amateur choirs are very special musical entities because the vast majority of the world's choirs are amateur and their contrinution to the musical life of the world is inestimable. (It is also worth remembering that choirs perform far, far more new music (regardless of what we think of the quality of individual pieces) than any other performing groups (orchestras, string quartets etc.) apart from specialist contemporary music ensembles.)

But we have been told here that this piece, or that piece, is "too difficult". Nothing should be too difficult for the people it is written for. But I don't think anyone is suggesting that amateur choirs are defined by having limited capacity.