CE Blackburn Cathedral Oct 16th 2013

[ardcarp]

I see your point too, Vile Consort. OTOH, whilst The Choir Forum in theory embraces all aspects of choral music, in practice it is heavily peopled by devotees of church music and of CE in particular. It cannot be denied that 'the traditional choir of men and boys' thing is held dear by many, and as such is a valid topic of conversation in this place. Certainly one wonders sometimes whether there is anything new to be said, but it is not unknown (!) in other parts of the R3 Forum for certain contributors to exercise their war-horses rather too frequently.

[W.Kearns]

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.

[DracoM]

We are in transition, and whenever a genre is in transition, the fragmentation of the known into factionalism is accentuated until finally they become irreconcilable.

For generations it was always assumed and unquestioned that boys led the big foundation choirs. However, as the age of puberty fell, as peripheral rival attractions became not peripheral but all-invasive, and as a result as boys became far more aware of the judgement of their peers OUTSIDE the bubble on their status as singers in a particular genre, so the lure of singing in that genre became less attractive. Foundations look to continue the music at all costs, and in that cause there can be only one solution: if boys made themselves, or the glamour of the world make the cause of singing less attractive, then there is no option but to recruit girls, for obvious reasons. The core cause is surely the continuation and evolution of a huge and important musical heritage.

Force majeure, DoMs themselves will gradually emerge for whom the exclusively boy-led choir will become a thing of memory, and that can only be a matter of years ahead, not decades. DoMs want to keep themselves in a job: no choir, no job. So recruit where you can. The transition from boy- to mixed- to girl-led choirs is thus not based on rigid axiom or principle as too often asserted by traditionalists, but founded on basic pragmatics and sheer economic and musical necessity. And indeed, it is a serious problem if a foundation has choirs separately led if the one front line sees the other gender's regularly getting the limelight. How do you juggle? If you want continuity, you go for girls. QED. It's not something may would necessarily wish, but that's how the cookie crumbles.

It is undoubtedly true that there is a qualitative difference between the sound a good girls' , a good boys' and a good mixed choir make. It is also true that for the vast majority of composers who have written for such foundations in the not too distant past and well before that, it will be the sound and capacities of boys singing which persist in the mind's ear when composing. The various timbres boys and girls make at both the top and bottom of their registers are distinctive. Yes, some DoMs are adept at making one gender sound like the other: one might argue that New College Oxford of late has trained boy trebles to sing with production and diction plus vibrato that makes them sound very like young but adult women almost to the point of caricature some might suggest. OTOH, The Vienna Boys' Choir seem to encourage a richness and roundness of tone that is quintessentially masculine- the real 'continental sound'. Now, the basic anatomy of boys in Oxford and Vienna is almost certainly the same, but the models they are made to aspire to are clearly different. Some DoMs in UK make their girls sing like boys as much as possible - eg the difference between the sounds of girls and boys at Chichester is wafer thin even to the alert ear. Because American boys move on to High School a year later than their counterparts in the tradition prep/choir school structure in UK, they jostle to remain part of a crack ensemble of the place for as long as possible, hence St Thomas Fifth Avenue Choir School can keep boys singing for a tad longer than in UK, closer to the Vienna / Scandinavian model and hence produce a richness, confidence and musicianship that arouses admiration, largely because boys are competitive, the reasons they are at this top singing school is to sing, to be famous, so they jolly well make sure they can go on singing well for as long as possible. In UK, it is exactly the reverse: we all know that many boys can in reality go on singing treble for a good deal longer than they pretend, because, as ardcarp shrewdly says, they know that by and large, it is so seriously uncool to be heard / seen doing so. The Drome used to have a policy whereby the best trebles sliding towards alto were allowed and encouraged to sing alto full time until the change, thus retaining a very characteristic timbre you can still hear in some of their recordings of the 60s or so where adult and boy altos blend. 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.

Composers nowadays must write for whatever ensembles are extant and will pay them. They cannot as Victoria or Wesley did unquestionably expect boys to be the practitioners. It would be fascinating to have contributions from composers who have written for exclusively boy-led choirs and hear what they see as the tricks / catches / breaks and foibles of the boy voice they exploited. And then ask the same composers what they would expect to write for a girl-led four part ensemble. These days, my guess is that most will say you can't afford to make such hair-breadth adjustments, you just write notes and you don't write for a particular timbre in a particular part of the stave. For Victoria et al, it was instinctive: he knew what Spanish boys voices sounded like in particular parts of their voices and at different points on the stave and unconsciously just did it. Question is what happens when you start to CONSCIOUSLY write for differently led ensembles? CAN you do that? Well, IMO, Britten did when writing for boy-led ensembles. He makes his boys sound like BOYS, who can be rowdy, play football, fight, and yet can sing as if butter would not melt etc. To my ears, girl-led ensembles can sound secure and angelic, but don't often sound as if they got dirty, kicked footballs around and bloodied noses. Britten's / Victoria's / Purcell's / Wesley's boys often do.

[jean]

I daresay I could find some dirt and bloodied noses too, if you insist.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

To my ears, girl-led ensembles can sound secure and angelic, but don't often sound as if they got dirty, kicked footballs around and bloodied noses. Britten's / Victoria's / Purcell's / Wesley's boys often do.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackburn_Rovers_LFC.

... as my sister used to be a member of this team, I couldn't resist this facetious response to your excellent post, DracoM. I do like young voices to sound like the voices of young people: full of optimism, gusto, occasionally fragile, frequently bloody-minded, and enjoying what they're doing - Britten caught this superbly (as did Bach).

[jean]

I'm sorry you thought yours was a facetious response, fhg - mine wasn't!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I'm sorry you thought yours was a facetious response, fhg - mine wasn't!

Well, DracoM did say that girls "don't often sound as if they" etc ... it's a start.

There is a tendency for some choir trainers to aim for an "ethereal" timbre which doesn't always do justice to the Music. (Nobody, please, ask for specific examples - I have enough enemies as it is.)

[Gabriel Jackson]

For generations it was always assumed and unquestioned that boys led the big foundation choirs. However, as the age of puberty fell, as peripheral rival attractions became not peripheral but all-invasive, and as a result as boys became far more aware of the judgement of their peers OUTSIDE the bubble on their status as singers in a particular genre, so the lure of singing in that genre became less attractive. Foundations look to continue the music at all costs, and in that cause there can be only one solution: if boys made themselves, or the glamour of the world make the cause of singing less attractive, then there is no option but to recruit girls, for obvious reasons. The core cause is surely the continuation and evolution of a huge and important musical heritage.

But that isn't the reason why foundations started introducing girls' choirs. If it were, they would have replaced boys with girls, and that hasn't happened (except at St David's, which was the result of a unique set of circumstances).

Force majeure, DoMs themselves will gradually emerge for whom the exclusively boy-led choir will become a thing of memory, and that can only be a matter of years ahead, not decades. DoMs want to keep themselves in a job: no choir, no job. So recruit where you can. The transition from boy- to mixed- to girl-led choirs is thus not based on rigid axiom or principle as too often asserted by traditionalists, but founded on basic pragmatics and sheer economic and musical necessity.

It is always claimed that mixing girls and boys will lead eventually to a girls-only treble line, but on what basis is that claim made? It certainly hasn't happened at St Mary's, Edinburgh.

It is undoubtedly true that there is a qualitative difference between the sound a good girls' , a good boys' and a good mixed choir make.

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

It is also true that for the vast majority of composers who have written for such foundations in the not too distant past and well before that, it will be the sound and capacities of boys singing which persist in the mind's ear when composing.

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, say, so any idea that there is a some sort of timbral authenticity in performances by modern all-male choirs of music written for apparently similar forces is very dubious.

Composers nowadays must write for whatever ensembles are extant and will pay them. They cannot as Victoria or Wesley did unquestionably expect boys to be the practitioners.

Didn't they always?!

It would be fascinating to have contributions from composers who have written for exclusively boy-led choirs and hear what they see as the tricks / catches / breaks and foibles of the boy voice they exploited. And then ask the same composers what they would expect to write for a girl-led four part ensemble. These days, my guess is that most will say you can't afford to make such hair-breadth adjustments, you just write notes and you don't write for a particular timbre in a particular part of the stave.

That is basically correct. There are other, more important considerations when writing for voices of whatever age, gender and ability.

For Victoria et al, it was instinctive: he knew what Spanish boys voices sounded like in particular parts of their voices and at different points on the stave and unconsciously just did it.

Did he? The forces that performed Victoria's work in his lifetime were more diverse than this suggests. And, as a matter of geography, he spent much of his career working in Italy.

Question is what happens when you start to CONSCIOUSLY write for differently led ensembles? CAN you do that? Well, IMO, Britten did when writing for boy-led ensembles. He makes his boys sound like BOYS, who can be rowdy, play football, fight, and yet can sing as if butter would not melt etc. To my ears, girl-led ensembles can sound secure and angelic, but don't often sound as if they got dirty, kicked footballs around and bloodied noses. Britten's / Victoria's / Purcell's / Wesley's boys often do.

Does he? He certainly had a sentimental view of boys (for all that I'm sure he thought it wasn't) along the lines suggested, but how does that actually manifest itself in the notes he wrote, rather than what he said/thought about the boys he was writing for? How does he make boys sound like boys in, say, the Missa Brevis, in a way that, say, Lennox Berkeley doesn't in his Missa Brevis (both pieces written for the same foundation)?

[ardcarp]

Ooh, I'm keeping out of this rough and tumble...except to say that there clearly is a wish to discuss such things here on The Choir Forum!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Ooh, I'm keeping out of this rough and tumble...

Oooh! That's you barred from Britten's Boys' Choirs

[jean]

...there clearly is a wish to discuss such things here on The Choir Forum!

Not so much that as a need to make points that one has made many times before which are being ignored with cavalier insouciance by others.

I may (re)list some of them below, if I have sufficient strength.

[DracoM]

Sentimentalising or whatever the motive, or from whatever outlook etc, for me Britten wrote more idiomatically for boys' voices per se than almost any other composer I know. How he did it, by what means, which bits of the boy voice / where on the stave he exploited is for far cleverer analysts than me to elucidate. That is not to say that other composers from all ages did/do not write well, indeed inspirationally for upper voices, boy or otherwise, merely that somehow, Britten manages to make boys sound who they are in total rather than mere angelic abstractions. I like the point made above that Bach knew how to do it for boys' voices as well - a terrible omission form my earlier posting!!

The reason why this thread is important for many is that, rather like the debate over symphony orchestra, many here are concerned spectators in a sea-change that is taking place over a series of decades in a 'traditional' ensemble/structure, its sound and expectations of it. At the centre of at least cathedral life in the UK, the debate takes many forms.

GJ's posting draws attention to the fact that some foundations' ensembles are well mixed and have been for years - I made some reference to that as well. Others are currently edging towards that. Others are experimenting with girl-led and boy-ed ensembles separately in the same foundation - fraught with interesting wrinkles, one would think. Others are fighting hard to maintain the 'traditional' mix in a time when the boy singing voice is apparently less populous than heretofore. The fact that I am using the word 'fight'; is in itself an indication of the shifting scene.

There are indeed here echoes of the HIPP debate of a decade or more ago which raged - I use the word advisedly. Then many suggested that the current notion of the continued existence of 'the symphony orchestra' was threatened. JEG, Norrington, many sacred and secular orchestral and ensemble team-makers had one way. The BPOs, VPO's et al took another view. And of course, no-one does know what liturgical choirs in the nineteenth century and before really sounded like. My contention was that by and large composers in the past writing liturgical music would assume without even giving it much of a second thought that it would be boys they were writing for, and I speculated as to how that would impact on their inner musical ear, imagination and professional practice. I'm afraid that in that sense I was a bit disappointed that GJ's posting - a professional composer in the field - wasn't all that much help in answering any of the questions I raised about the composing process, but that may still happen. Or maybe he would say that he could not afford to take any notice whatever of the gender or mix of the top line of choirs who commission him, merely of their expected competence.

Any genres in transition are of heir nature interesting - think what youtube, the internet, kindles etc are doing to TV, film, books, the composing of them, their expected demographic or likelihood of commercial success, who writes for them who sees / hears them, the future of huge places like cinemas to see films easily available via netflix or whatever. Massive shifts in popular access change the way practitioners see their role, their output, their language. Such that those above who have ridiculed this thread as being yet another excursion down the boys vs girls debate in the tiny world of cathedral worship are being singularly small-minded and unjustifiably dismissive of what is in microcosm an interesting but highly symbolic side order in the developing musical bill of fare we have today.

Maybe seeing this issue in a wider cultural context might quell the derision.

[jean]

...Britten wrote more idiomatically for boys' voices per se than almost any other composer I know. How he did it, by what means, which bits of the boy voice / where on the stave he exploited is for far cleverer analysts than me to elucidate...

Until very recently - ie earlier today - I thought that the words of Isaac in the Canticle Abraham and Isaac were superbly set for the boy alto who sings it on the recording I have.

But now I discover that Britten really set them for Kathleen Ferrier to sing.

I was a bit disappointed that GJ's posting...

I wasn't; he answered some of your points very neatly.

I have some points I may add to his (if I have the strength).

[ardcarp]

C'mon, Jean!

[Gabriel Jackson]

Sentimentalising or whatever the motive, or from whatever outlook etc, for me Britten wrote more idiomatically for boys' voices per se than almost any other composer I know. How he did it, by what means, which bits of the boy voice / where on the stave he exploited is for far cleverer analysts than me to elucidate.

I would suggest that it is not that you lack the analytical cleverness to elucidate this, but that it cannot be done. The idea that Britten wrote particularly idiomatically for boys' voices stems largely from the fact that he told us he did, by articulating ideas of 'boyness' that he found appealing and writing music that he thought reflected that.

That is not to say that other composers from all ages did/do not write well, indeed inspirationally for upper voices, boy or otherwise, merely that somehow, Britten manages to make boys sound who they are in total rather than mere angelic abstractions.

What are boys 'in total'? Boys, like girls, or adult women or adult men, are individual people, with their own personalities, likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses etc. What is this quality of 'boyness' that all boys possess, how does it manifest itself in sound, and how does any composer reflect that? Britten said he did but...

I'm afraid that in that sense I was a bit disappointed that GJ's posting - a professional composer in the field - wasn't all that much help in answering any of the questions I raised about the composing process, but that may still happen. Or maybe he would say that he could not afford to take any notice whatever of the gender or mix of the top line of choirs who commission him, merely of their expected competence.

I thought I answered rather succinctly, but there you go! It is not a question of not affording to take notice of the gender of the top line, but of it being irrelevant (in the case of choirs with child trebles.) Sometimes, as in the case of my 'strangely slight' piece for the City of London Sinfonia's cathedrals tour, I didn't/don't know their gender: in Ely, all the boys and all the girls were singing, in Guildford it was the boys (those being the only two performances I attended), I don't know who sang - boys? girls? some boys and some girls? all the boys and all the girls? - in the other eight concerts.