'Difficult' choral music, opinions on

[ardcarp]

Stuff written 50 years ago was generally far more difficult than stuff written now.
Discuss.

[Gabriel Jackson]

Stuff written 50 years ago was generally far more difficult than stuff written now.
Discuss.

No it wasn't! Some music was very difficult, some wasn't. Some music written now is very difficult, some isn't.
Some music that was considered very difficult 50 years ago isn't now.

[DracoM]

GJ, that's actually a series of somewhat peremptory assertions, not a discussion!
A discussion usually involves explaining a position and then evaluating others' takes on that position.

[Gabriel Jackson]

GJ, that's actually a series of somewhat peremptory assertions, not a discussion!
A discussion usually involves explaining a position and then evaluating others' takes on that position.

I'm sorry - I didn't realise an essay had been set.

[Simon]

Assertions indeed, but four of them clearly true.

What interested me, particularly, in Gabriel's post, was the fifth point, i.e. the idea that

"Some music that was considered very difficult 50 years ago isn't now."

I was wondering what sense of difficult he meant. Are choirs more able to sing things now? I'd be surprised, but if there's evidence I won't dispute it.

IIRC we had a go at a fair few difficult pieces and managed them.

EDIT: PS. Thanks to V/Consort who answered my earlier query, and others for their input.

[Gabriel Jackson]

The Tippett Canticles are a good example, as it happens, of a piece that we thought difficult 40 years ago, but nowadays doesn't present any huge problems (apart from one tricky entry for the trebles in the Magnificat). Why might that be? I think, generally, the standard of choral singing across the board is higher now than it was 50 years ago (there is plenty of recorded - as in gramophone-recorded - evidence for this) but also things which were conceptually challenging 50 years ago are not any more, due to greater familiarity etc.

[Wolsey]

The Tippett Canticles are a good example, as it happens, of a piece that we thought difficult 40 years ago, but nowadays doesn't present any huge problems (apart from one tricky entry for the trebles in the Magnificat). Why might that be? I think, generally, the standard of choral singing across the board is higher now than it was 50 years ago (there is plenty of recorded - as in gramophone-recorded - evidence for this) but also things which were conceptually challenging 50 years ago are not any more, due to greater familiarity etc.

Other parallels which support this are Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, considered difficult in 1913, but now part of the staple repertoire of orchestras - both adult and youth. Also, Dupré's Trois Préludes et Fugues, Op. 7, pronounced "unplayable" by Widor, and yet now played by talented teen-aged organists.

[Contre Bombarde]

Also, Dupré's Trois Préludes et Fugues, Op. 7, pronounced "unplayable" by Widor, and yet now played by talented teen-aged organists.

Indeed. As one who has been sweating blood over my score of Francis Pott's "Christus" for the past few months I do hope that I shall conquer it before some horribly talented 18 year old shows me how!

[ardcarp]

Gabriel. I felt like responding, rather pompously, that I've been singing (and accompanying) stuff for 50 years. Instead, I'll say it's my opinion more stuff written now is is a total doddle to pick up and read compared with stuff written then. You will no doubt be quick to find exceptions, of which I am sure there are many.

Maybe we could go back a little further to the late 1930s. I always find myself drawn to Britten's Choral Variations 'A Boy was Born', as an example of a real tour de force of choral technique. More recently I've been challenged by the likes of Gordon Crosse and Jonathan Harvey. But in my student days we had to tackle some really wacky stuff. I gather there are still some people out there producing wacky stuff that you need tuning forks and a wierd vocabulary of semi-vocal noises to perform. But they are hardly household names.

[ardcarp]

...sorry, that was a weird spelling....

[Gabriel Jackson]

Gabriel. I felt like responding, rather pompously, that I've been singing (and accompanying) stuff for 50 years.

I'm sure you have, but since we don't know who you are, that in itself doesn't tell us anything of any great significance.

Instead, I'll say it's my opinion more stuff written now is is a total doddle to pick up and read compared with stuff written then. You will no doubt be quick to find exceptions, of which I am sure there are many.

Well, in my opinion, that is not the case. Of course there's plenty of very straightforward music being written now, just as there was 50 years ago.

Maybe we could go back a little further to the late 1930s. I always find myself drawn to Britten's Choral Variations 'A Boy was Born', as an example of a real tour de force of choral technique. More recently I've been challenged by the likes of Gordon Crosse and Jonathan Harvey. But in my student days we had to tackle some really wacky stuff. I gather there are still some people out there producing wacky stuff that you need tuning forks and a wierd vocabulary of semi-vocal noises to perform. But they are hardly household names.

Gordon Crosse stopped composing 30 years ago (until he started again, very recently). Jonathan Harvey has written plenty of easy music, as well as very difficult pieces. I don't see anything wacky about non-sung vocal sounds, or music that requires perfect pitch, or tuning forks. In any case there is plenty of such music being written now, whose composers are no more household names than their colleagues were 50 years ago! (A piece can still be extremely difficult by the way, without it invloving the use of tuning forks or non-sung sounds...ask the BBC Singers about the last piece I wrote for them...)

[Simon]

I'm sure you have, but since we don't know who you are, that in itself doesn't tell us anything of any great significance.

Depends what you mean by significance. Fame is no guarantee of either ability or insight. One doesn't need to know precisely who someone is to value their accumulated experience and wisdom.

There are household names whose opinions, based on their apparent behaviour and stupidity, I think I'd value less than those of more or less any "ordinary citizen" you'd randomly come across on the Clapham omnibus.

[ardcarp]

[paul duggan2]

Depends what you mean by significance. Fame is no guarantee of either ability or insight. One doesn't need to know precisely who someone is to value their accumulated experience and wisdom.

There are household names whose opinions, based on their apparent behaviour and stupidity, I think I'd value less than those of more or less any "ordinary citizen" you'd randomly come across on the Clapham omnibus.

Shouldn't you be proud to attach your full name to your posts?

[Simon]

Shouldn't you be proud to attach your full name to your posts?

I'm not quite sure I understand. In what sense ought I to be proud?