Choral music and Radio 3's priorities

[jean]

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, is inevitably linked to the nature and extent of music education that they will have received when at school...

I keep mentioning the decline in sight-reading ability (I think you just don't read my posts!) but sight-reading wasn't something I ever learned in school myself.

However, since I've admitted that what motivated me was the need to keep up with the singers from cathedral and college choirs I found myself singing with, I suppose I benefited from their (private) musical education.

What irritates me is a general attitude of complacency among amateur singers - this is a skill they needn't bother to equip themselves with. I find myself standing next to people sometimes who don't even know what a rest is, let alone how one knows that one sort indicates a longer pause than another, or who don't realise that an accidental alters the pitch of a note.

And it really is not that difficult to find out.

One result of this lack is that singers will tend to harmonise by ear. I've just been rehearsing Tavener's Funeral Ikos, and there are stretches where the first sops sing C, the seconds A, and the altos D. And the altos just gravitate to the octave C below the sops, because they're singing what sounds right rather than what's written.

.

[ahinton]

I keep mentioning the decline in sight-reading ability (I think you just don't read my posts!)

Not only do I indeed read them (why, for example, would I exclude them when reading this or any other thread to which you have contributed) but it was those that came to mind when I wrote about this factor being "touched on peripherally", by which I mean that it's not something that seems so far to have engaged others contributing to this thread.

[jean]

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.

It's the only version I've ever heard. I'm sure I'd revise my opinion if I heard it properly...

[jean]

Not only do I indeed read them (why, for example, would I exclude them when reading this or any other thread to which you have contributed) but it was those that came to mind when I wrote about this factor being "touched on peripherally", by which I mean that it's not something that seems so far to have engaged others contributing to this thread.

I forgive you.

Actually there's been a suggestion that too much sight-reading might be a bad thing - I think it was early on in this thread that someone (ardcarp?) deplored the tendency to tell singers just to turn up on the day with a black folder.

.

[Guest]

The experienced singers - from wherever their musical education may have come - in a choral grouping have IMO a responsibility to help those less experienced, to dispel fears of the hitherto unfamiliar or unknown, to help shape dynamics in response to a careful listening alertly when the new or 'tricky' is being set out. Sight-reading is a gift that can be learnt of course, but the uncertain and perhaps enthusiastic singer may need assistance in achieving security by knowing that there are others around them who are capable of reassuring leadership.

The problem is that if an unduly huge amount of weight is put on instant sight-reading abilities, the young - see other posters' strictures on current music education - will be even more deterred. Composers today are faced with a very tricky paradox: groups want to sing, composers wish to write [earn a living?], but the one can inhibit the expression of the other.

I suspect this is pretty well a centuries old conundrum. I bet Gesualdo had a few face-to-face encounters with those who first sang his stuff!

[jean]

At no point did I intend to imply that an amateur choir is "a special sort of musical entity with limited capacity".

I think I detected an ascending order in your

...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.

But as you have subsequently explained it, I was probably wrong.

[jean]

The experienced singers - from wherever their musical education may have come - in a choral grouping have IMO a responsibility to help those less experienced...

Of course - and as I've explained, that's how it worked for me.

But what if the less experienced are perfectly happy as they are, even if it means Karl Jenkins rather than Gesualdo?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

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

The Music of The Great Learning is an astonishing achievement; it is possibly for political rather than Musical reasons that it is neither as well-known nor as frequently performed in the UK as the quality of that Music deserves.

"In the UK"; at the last (AFAIK) performance of the (almost) whole work, the British performers were supplemented by a group of Polish singers, who had performed the whole work a couple of months earlier, in a Sports Stadium, to full "houses". They were astonished that the London performance were so poorly attended.

[Gabriel Jackson]

Composers today are faced with a very tricky paradox: groups want to sing, composers wish to write [earn a living?], but the one can inhibit the expression of the other.

I don't think that's true, really. Writing for voices requires particular skills (just as writing for the guitar requires particular skills, or the harp...) but there shouldn't be any tension between what the choir wants and the composer wants.

There are things that I might ask the BBC Singers to do, or The Crossing, that I wouldn't ask, say, a cathedral choir to do, but I don't think that's a problem. I recently finished some Shakespeare settings (like everyone else!) and one of the co-commissioners specified that there be no divisi, just 4-part SATB. I found that difficult, because my natural instinct with rich texts is to create rich textures, and I had to be resourceful and find different ways to create what I hope is an interesting piece; but that's my job.

[jean]

...one of the co-commissioners specified that there be no divisi, just 4-part SATB...

Do you know why they asked for that?

[Richard Barrett]

I think I detected an ascending order

It's hard to imagine descending much further than an overworked symphony orchestra at the end of a season working with a conductor they don't respect and a composer they regard as a charlatan! (mentioning no names)

[jean]

But the potential was there!

[Gabriel Jackson]

Do you know why they asked for that?

No I don't, for sure. I assume that they perhaps lack confidence singing in more than 4 parts, or perhaps they feared that it might be too complex, texturally.

[light_calibre_baritone]

However, since I've admitted that what motivated me was the need to keep up with the singers from cathedral and college choirs I found myself singing with, I suppose I benefited from their (private) musical education.
.

Is that an assumption that it's entirely the privately educated that can sight-read?

Your comment that I quoted might also link in with Draco's comments on more experienced musicians helping, mixing or guiding less experienced ones to help increase confidence... I struggle to see this happening regularly; how could it be achieved (presume you're not talking about the odd ringer in a choral society gig, Draco)?

[Guest]

Not at all sure that is what jean is assuming.