Choral music and Radio 3's priorities

[Gabriel Jackson]

The majority of Russian speakers would not understand most of the text of Rachmaninoff's All-Night Vigil as it is in Church Slavonic.

Good point! But who speaks Church Slavonic?!

[Richard Barrett]

But who speaks Church Slavonic?!

About the same number of people who speak Latin and for the same reasons...

[ardcarp]

In the Granados CotW today, Donald related how Spanish Church Music was stripped of its glory following Napoleon's invasion. Male monasteries and choir schools were abolished, apparently, and only ordained priests were allowed to sing in church!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0745bxk (about 32 mins from start)

The rare example of Granados' church music which followed was a bizarre backward-looking attempt to sound 'holy'...and not given a wonderful performance either!

[DracoM]

But Mr GJ, if no-one can explain the words, or explains them badly, then surely the critical and interpretative link between the musical language and the sung language is at the very least impaired?

[jean]

...My advice to her was to learn another language that people actually speak, for all that Latin can be useful.

I find that a terribly narrow view.

If you know Latin, you have the foundations of at least half a dozen languages that people do actually speak.

[Gabriel Jackson]

I find that a terribly narrow view.

If you know Latin, you have the foundations of at least half a dozen languages that people do actually speak.

You know what individual words mean, probably, but what else? I have found knowing Latin very useful in my work, but I think it's better to learn a language to speak it rather than learn one, Latin, to help with others (which still have to be learned).

[Gabriel Jackson]

But Mr GJ, if no-one can explain the words, or explains them badly, then surely the critical and interpretative link between the musical language and the sung language is at the very least impaired?

Yes but you don't have to actually speak the language to be able to do that. I have set various languages I don't speak, but I do know what the texts mean, including what every individual word means.

[Richard Barrett]

If you know Latin, you have the foundations of at least half a dozen languages that people do actually speak.

This is what people often say, but does it actually help in practical terms? I enjoyed Latin at school and it's sometimes handy in a musical or etymological context but really, if you know for example French you also have a head start in Italian, Spanish etc. with the advantage that you can speak it with very many people. In a musical context, knowing what the Latin words mean (and how to pronounce them convincingly and consistently according to the chosen convention) seems to me essential; for a composer (and therefore for his/her interpreters) the sound and texture of a text is often of comparable significance to its meaning.

[ardcarp]

Then there's German. Did anyone hear this on Breakfast?

Per Nørgård
Wie ein Kind; II Fruhlings-Lied
Danish National Choir/DR. Conductor: Stefan Parkman.

A lovely piece. I'm not being totally irrelevant to the discussion however. I learned Latin and French at school and am grateful for both. I did not learn German (a language more related to English in many ways) but as a singer had to learn to pronounce it and find out what the words meant. In other words, one way 'into' a language is to sing it! Admittedly neither the words of the Passion nor of Schubert Lieder help very much when you go to buy a loaf of bread in Dusseldorf. But I'm rather on the side of knowing what you're singing about...even if for instance in the Rach Vespers, a great deal of rehearsal time can be taken up with the effort of pronunciation and meaning. I wonder if in pre-Reformation England the 'ordinary' people understood the words of the Mass? (One thinks of Hocus Pocus...possibly....being a parody of Hic est Corpus.)

[french frank]

My niece, at a state school, has the opportunity to learn a second language (in addition to French). One of those options is Latin. My advice to her was to learn another language that people actually speak, for all that Latin can be useful.

[Cave: Off topic] If anyone wants to learn a language that 'people actually speak' I would advise them to spend some time in the country where people are speaking it. My second language being French, I still prize Latin over the several other languages that I can get by in when I visit the countries.

On Latin though: most of the texts that are set are standard, and translations are readily available on the internet - for choral directors and singers. Though it does need DoMs to insist that the texts are studied: people surely don't have to understand the grammar.

[jean]

This is what people often say, but does it actually help in practical terms?.

Yes it does. It's not all you need, but I could read Italian and Spanish before I had ever formally learnt anything of either of those languages.

Catholics of course weren't supposed to understand the words of the Mass - enough that they knelt there mumbling into their rosaries, with an occasional glance at the stained glass, while it was going on (no, not that one please!)

But this is a side issue, really - understanding what you're singing about IS important, and not that difficult to achieve, even if you're not fluent in the languages you're singing. That's really up to the MD, some of whom are very conscientious, some of whom don't care - or, as ff says, it's not hard to find what you need on the internet.

(And as an audience member, I feel very cheated if the words aren't in the programme - and I don't like being palmed off with just a translation, either.)

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[jean]

It's been obvious from this thread that there are rather different singing traditions in different European countries. I would guess that the British one owes more to Christianity than some others have, which means that the rapid decline in religious practice has been more devastating here than it has been elsewhere.

http://www.johnpoole.net/english/biography.htm

(Have to go and sing now. To be continued.)

[ardcarp]

I would guess that the British one owes more to Christianity than some others have,

Indeed it does. One of the most pioneering systems of teaching children to sing was The Kodaly Method. It was very much secular and folk-based, and was I believe adopted at one point by the Hungarian state in all schools. It had a certain popularity in the UK at one time, but it needed a dedicated and trained teacher, plus an enlightened headmaster/mistress.. Sadly the way state primary schools are run these days does not seem to allow such adventures.

[Gabriel Jackson]

But this is a side issue, really - understanding what you're singing about IS important, and not that difficult to achieve, even if you're not fluent in the languages you're singing. That's really up to the MD, some of whom are very conscientious, some of whom don't care - or, as ff says, it's not hard to find what you need on the internet.

(And as an audience member, I feel very cheated if the words aren't in the programme - and I don't like being palmed off with just a translation, either.)

.

Exactly! I also think that (as mine does) publishers should print the text in the front of a score (with a translation), especially if it's not a very common one, as seeing the text as you read it note to note, bar to bar, is not the same as seeing it in toto.

[Richard Barrett]

Yes it does. It's not all you need, but I could read Italian and Spanish before I had ever formally learnt anything of either of those languages.

My point was that this would also be true if you'd learned French, with the added value that French is useful in itself. None of these languages use the complexity of inflexion that Latin has, learning which (by this token) would have been a waste of time.