CE Blackburn Cathedral Oct 16th 2013

[Gabriel Jackson]

Britten wrote much of his music for boys' voices with that richer chestier potential in his mind's ear - I cite the Ceremony of Carols and The Golden Vanity.

Except A Ceremony of Carols was written for female voices.

[Miles Coverdale]

I always find it rather baffling that when this particular subject raises its hoary head again, someone will always say something to the effect that Byrd and Bach wrote for boys' voices as if this was their choice and, by implication, their preference. As there were no girl choristers to sing Bach's Passions or Byrd's anthems, and the composer had no choice in the matter, it seems to me that the point is irrelevant. Further, I would suggest that Bach's concern for writing good fugue or Byrd's for writing good counterpoint far outweighed any consideration they may have had for the intended performers (if indeed the composer had any particular performers in mind at all).

Just as one might wonder what keyboard music Bach might have written if he had had a Steinway grand at his disposal, so one could speculate what Byrd might have written had girls been singing in English cathedral choirs in the sixteenth century, and how it might have differed from what has come down to us. My instinct is that it would not have differed at all.

The following passage from Roger North (1651–1734) is worth quoting in this context. ‘One might without a desparate solecisme maintain that if female quiristers were taken into quires instead of boys, it would be a vast improvement of chorall musick, because they come to a judgment as well as voice, which the boys do not arrive at before their voices perish, and small improvement of skill grows up in the room, till they come to man's estate.’

[Vile Consort]

The fact that they didn't have a choice in the matter is irrelevant. They DID write for boys whatever the reason was.

Similarly, Byrd never discovered the joys of the Moog synthesizer because of an accident of history. His not writing any music for it was not a matter of choice for him. Does that means that performances of his music on one better represents what he really would have wanted if he had the choice? Not at all. The idea is preposterous.

[Miles Coverdale]

The fact that they didn't have a choice in the matter is irrelevant. They DID write for boys whatever the reason was.

Perhaps you missed my point, which was essentially that I do not think they wrote for boys specifically, they wrote music, which happened to be performed by boys. The music is of far greater importance than the gender of the performers.

Similarly, Byrd never discovered the joys of the Moog synthesizer because of an accident of history. His not writing any music for it was not a matter of choice for him. Does that means that performances of his music on one better represents what he really would have wanted if he had the choice? Not at all. The idea is preposterous.

I didn't say that. See above.

That said, maybe Byrd would have liked the Moog. Who knows?

[Vile Consort]

We'll never know. What we do know is that he didn't write music for it. Or for choirs of girls. Our performances can only be informed by what we know - never by what we don't.

[Miles Coverdale]

What we do know is that he didn't write music for it. Or for choirs of girls. Our performances can only be informed by what we know - never by what we don't.

In that case, we don't know that he did not write for ensembles which included girls. Do you know who performed from the Gradualia, for example? It cannot be said that no girl ever performed that music. It is entirely possible that girls did peform that repertoire. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

[Vile Consort]

You have a point. But it is merely that my choice of Byrd was not a good one.

There are plenty of other composers who were certainly writing for boys. For example, all composers in the English cathedral tradition from the beginning of the nineteenth century almost to the present day. I don't know for certain about Bach or Palestrina, Victoria, Lassus, Josquin et al. Perhaps someone more learned can enlighten us.

[Magnificat]

I fail to see why being 'held dear by many' necessarily makes the standing/survival of all male Cathedral choirs a perennially 'valid topic of conversation.'

it's true that those of us who browse over the choir message board don't have to read posts we find unhelpful or unenlightening. In fact, we don't have to come to the forum at all.

If you personally don't particularly value the tradition of boys singing in cathedral choirs or even perhaps couldn't care less about it then you wouldn't see it as having any validity as a regular topic on this board would you?.

Those of us who do care deeply about it and see the value to boys of singing generally see a tradition very much in danger of dying out completely not least because the advent of girls choirs has made worries about recruitment of boys, their earlier voice breaking and changes in society and church going culture less of a problem for cathedral DoMs than it might have been in the past. They'll get girls whatever happens, they are easier to train than boys, concentrate better, are more mature etc. Why should DoMs bother to try to keep the boys' choir going considering all the effort required for so little return.

Someone posted above that the numbers of boys are well down at Blackburn. Yet not far away at Broughton parish church near Preston, according to a letter in this week's Church Times, the choir is overflowing with some 30 boys. Why is there this discrepancy in recruiting success? Why do many cathedral DoMs struggle to recruit? What is the secret of a successful recruitment campaign and just how much effort and resource is put into this area by cathedrals?

The value to boys from singing is featured regularly in articles in newspapers and programmes on television that are likely to be read by and viewed by parents from the sort of middle class background that is going to provide most choristers yet they are still in short supply. It seems to me, therefore, that it is up to cathedral D & C's and DoMs, if they really think they have something worth offering to boys, to go out and sell this great product.

How much money do D & Cs put into this area. If they are trying to raise finance which is just as difficult an area as chorister recruitment they would no doubt employ professional fund raisers. Are professional recruitment companies ever employed to advise on exploiting all the resources available in a cathedral's locality to encourage boys to join its choir?

Recruitment may not be a DoM's forte and he should be helped to delegate this aspect of the job in every possible way by the D&C. Some cathedrals have first rate choir associations and music trusts that take on some of this sort of delegated responsibility to spread the word and raise funds; but many seem to have nothing like this at all and just rely on the usual adverts for voice trials, be a chorister for a day, school visits etc and seem to give up if these don't produce results.

The DoM should ,however, personally ensure that singing in his/her choir is not all work and no play and these days there must be plenty of other activities going on for the boys especially if there is no associated school to help provide these and the D&C should be prepared to accept that the cathedral's services will, at times, have to take second place to the requirements of 21st century boys.

If the tradition of using boys on the top line of cathedral choirs is valued by D&Cs and DoMs, if not by people viewing this message board, then, in my opinion, there is going to have to be a lot more radical thinking outside the box than currently seems to be going on in respect of chorister recruitment.

VCC

[Miles Coverdale]

You have a point. But it is merely that my choice of Byrd was not a good one.

There are plenty of other composers who were certainly writing for boys.

At the risk of repeating myself, I do not think these composers wrote for boys. They wrote music, first and foremost, which, for a variety of reasons, happened to be sung by boys. That is not the same thing.

At the Sistine Chapel in the sixteenth century, the top line was taken by high falsettists and later by castrati. Elsewhere, boys would have taken the top line. As a composer could not necessarily know where his music might end up being sung (and having it sung at the Sistine Chapel would probably have been seen as something of an honour), the idea that composers must have had boys (and only boys) in mind is not a sustainable argument.

[Caussade]

If you personally don't particularly value the tradition of boys singing in cathedral choirs or even perhaps couldn't care less about it then you wouldn't see it as having any validity as a regular topic on this board would you?.

Those of us who do care deeply about it and see the value to boys of singing generally see a tradition very much in danger of dying out completely not least because the advent of girls choirs has made worries about recruitment of boys, their earlier voice breaking and changes in society and church going culture less of a problem for cathedral DoMs than it might have been in the past. They'll get girls whatever happens, they are easier to train than boys, concentrate better, are more mature etc. Why should DoMs bother to try to keep the boys' choir going considering all the effort required for so little return.

Someone posted above that the numbers of boys are well down at Blackburn. Yet not far away at Broughton parish church near Preston, according to a letter in this week's Church Times, the choir is overflowing with some 30 boys. Why is there this discrepancy in recruiting success? Why do many cathedral DoMs struggle to recruit? What is the secret of a successful recruitment campaign and just how much effort and resource is put into this area by cathedrals?

The value to boys from singing is featured regularly in articles in newspapers and programmes on television that are likely to be read by and viewed by parents from the sort of middle class background that is going to provide most choristers yet they are still in short supply. It seems to me, therefore, that it is up to cathedral D & C's and DoMs, if they really think they have something worth offering to boys, to go out and sell this great product.

How much money do D & Cs put into this area. If they are trying to raise finance which is just as difficult an area as chorister recruitment they would no doubt employ professional fund raisers. Are professional recruitment companies ever employed to advise on exploiting all the resources available in a cathedral's locality to encourage boys to join its choir?

Recruitment may not be a DoM's forte and he should be helped to delegate this aspect of the job in every possible way by the D&C. Some cathedrals have first rate choir associations and music trusts that take on some of this sort of delegated responsibility to spread the word and raise funds; but many seem to have nothing like this at all and just rely on the usual adverts for voice trials, be a chorister for a day, school visits etc and seem to give up if these don't produce results.

The DoM should ,however, personally ensure that singing in his/her choir is not all work and no play and these days there must be plenty of other activities going on for the boys especially if there is no associated school to help provide these and the D&C should be prepared to accept that the cathedral's services will, at times, have to take second place to the requirements of 21st century boys.

If the tradition of using boys on the top line of cathedral choirs is valued by D&Cs and DoMs, if not by people viewing this message board, then, in my opinion, there is going to have to be a lot more radical thinking outside the box than currently seems to be going on in respect of chorister recruitment.

VCC

1. Introducing girls *was* a way of thinking outside the box; at one cathedral near here recruitment (options severely limited by so many factors,despite built into the system that there's no space to list them here) tripled within 9 months, and has stayed strong, because the boys are now under less pressure and had some time with their families at weekends. They were singing eight services a week, including Saturday, in addition to a full day-school timeable. What parent is going to buy that for their child? Both sets of choristers are thriving. 2. Middle-class parents are not always the most helpful demographic when it comes to chorister recruitment; they are more likely to be the ones with the skiing plans at Christmas, or the ones who take half-term breaks abroad which clash with rehearsals. 3. Do you seriously think cathedrals have money to throw at professional recruitment consultancies? What sort of recruitment consultancy knows anything about this issue, or would be in the least bit interested in the brief? Do you know how much these people charge even to switch on their laptops? 4. It seems pretty obvious to me that the Preston church is doing better than the cathedral because they're asking less time of people. One or two years of strong recruitment does not indicate a long-term ability to recruit; let's see how they are doing in three years from now. And of course numbers do not indicate quality of applicant. Even Barry Rose had to operate some sort of quality control, despite your frequent protestations to the contrary.

[Roger Judd]

This might cheer everyone up ...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/children_shealth/10394004/Confessions-of-a-choir-mother.html

RJ

[jean]

So many good points - just a few to add:

how often have listeners failed to make that distinction, and mis-identified the gender of the trebles they are listening to?

Evidence of this on nearly every CE thread!

But that's only because choir directors are sneakily training their girls to sound like boys - trying to steal the essential boyness detected by Draco and others.

All-male choirs of fairly recent provenance (60-70 years ago) sound very different to their present-day counterpoints, in all sorts of respects. So going back further, we have no idea what these choirs sounded like 500 years ago...

One thing we do know is that boys' voices have been breaking earlier and earlier. The boys who sang the music of the Renaissance masters were years older than those who can sing it now.

We can never know excactly what they sounded like, and there the attempt to draw this into a HIPP discussion breaks down. We know what a gut stringed baroque instrument sounded like because we've got examples we can examine and play. We can't do that with boys dead four hundred years ago.

[Gabriel Jackson]

At the risk of repeating myself, I do not think these composers wrote for boys. They wrote music, first and foremost, which, for a variety of reasons, happened to be sung by boys. That is not the same thing.

Indeed. And the example of Britten's A Ceremony of Carols, often thought to be particularly effectively written for boys but actually written for female voices (as mentioned previously), is a good instance of the dangers of attributing to composers thoughts and intentions about the music they were writing and the forces they wrote it for which didn't exist.

[jean]

There are plenty of other composers who were certainly writing for boys. For example, all composers in the English cathedral tradition from the beginning of the nineteenth century almost to the present day.

Not a very long tradition, then!

Interesting to consider where it came from. After extreme Puritanism swept away the exisiting choral tradition, we had West Gallery music, in its turn swept away by the ecclesiological reforms of the nineteenth century. That resurrected an all-male choral tradition which had its origins in a horror of women doing anything of importance in a liturgical context.

I don't know for certain about Bach or Palestrina, Victoria, Lassus, Josquin et al. Perhaps someone more learned can enlighten us.

There's a lot we don't and can't know. Adult male falsettists and castrati in the Sistine Chapel have been mentioned; sixteenth-century boy trebles could have been older than their modern counterparts; it's extremely unlikely that the Catholic households where Byrd's Catholic music might have been sung would have contained a full complement of boys' voices - it's even suggested that if these works were performed, it wouldn't have been in the context of the actual celebration of Mass (far too dangerous - you needed to get through that as quickly as possible) but as a reflection on the liturgy, by the same forces as might have sung contemporary madrigals.

[Gabriel Jackson]

One thing we do know is that boys' voices have been breaking earlier and earlier. The boys who sang the music of the Renaissance masters were years older than those who can sing it now.

We can never know excactly what they sounded like, and there the attempt to draw this into a HIPP discussion breaks down. We know what a gut stringed baroque instrument sounded like because we've got examples we can examine and play. We can't do that with boys dead four hundred years ago.

Exactly! And if we look at a slightly older generation of English composers than Byrd, whose liturgical music was almost certainly all composed for all-male forces, we don't know how many voices there were to a part (though information about the numbers of boys and men in various 16th-century establishments survives, those numbers vary widely); we don't know who sang what (was the top part alone sung by boys, or the top two? That probably varied from one establishment to another); we don't know what pitch the music was sung at (which affects tessitura and, therefore, colour) as not only was pitch not fixed as it is now, but various theories of transposition have been posited, none of them proved or disproved. (I suspect there was pragmatism about pitch standard.) We don't know whether there were any adult falsettists or not (and falsetto timbre is a crucial component of modern all-male choirs). We don't really know about tempo, or dynamics. And, above all, as has been repeatedly stated, we have no idea of what any of these singers sounded like. So it is almost certain that modern performances by all-male choirs of Tudor music bear absolutely no relation whatsoever to what their composers would have expected.