How To Listen To Music Part 18

In size mixed choirs ordinarily range from forty voices to five hundred. It were well if it were understood by choristers as well as the public that numbers merely are not a sign of merit in a singing society. So the concert-room be not too large, a choir of sixty well-trained voices is large enough to perform almost everything in choral literature with good effect, and the majority of the best compositions will sound better under such circ.u.mstances than in large rooms with large choirs. Especially is this true of the music of the Middle Ages, written for voices without instrumental accompaniment, of which I shall have something to say when the discussion reaches choral programmes. There is music, it is true, like much of Handel's, the impressiveness of which is greatly enhanced by ma.s.ses, but it is not extensive enough to justify the sacrifice of correctness and finish in the performance to mere volume. The use of large choirs has had the effect of developing the skilfulness of amateur singers in an astonishing degree, but there is, nevertheless, a point where weightiness of tone becomes an obstacle to finished execution. When Mozart remodelled Handel's "Messiah" he was careful to indicate that the florid pa.s.sages ("divisions" they used to be called in England) should be sung by the solo voices alone, but nowadays choirs of five hundred voices attack such choruses as "For unto us a Child is Born,"

without the slightest hesitation, even if they sometimes make a mournful mess of the "divisions."

[Sidenote: _The division of choirs._]

[Sidenote: _Five-part music._]

[Sidenote: _Eight part._]

[Sidenote: _Antiphonal music._]

[Sidenote: _Bach's "St. Matthew Pa.s.sion."_]

The normal division of a mixed choir is into four parts or voices--soprano, contralto, tenor, and ba.s.s; but composers sometimes write for more parts, and the choir is subdivided to correspond. The custom of writing for five, six, eight, ten, and even more voices was more common in the Middle Ages, the palmy days of the _a capella_ (_i.e._, for the chapel, unaccompanied) style than it is now, and, as a rule, a division into more than four voices is not needed outside of the societies which cultivate this old music, such as the Musical Art Society in New York, the Bach Choir in London, and the Domchor in Berlin. In music for five parts, one of the upper voices, soprano or tenor, is generally doubled; for six, the ordinary distribution is into two sopranos, two contraltos, tenor, and ba.s.s. When eight voices are reached a distinction is made according as there are to be eight real parts (_a otto voci reali_), or two choruses of the four normal parts each (_a otto voci in due cori reali_). In the first instance the arrangement commonly is three sopranos, two contraltos, two tenors, and one ba.s.s. One of the most beautiful uses of the double choir is to produce antiphonal effects, choir answering to choir, both occasionally uniting in the climaxes. How stirring this effect can be made may be observed in some of Bach's compositions, especially those in which he makes the division of the choir subserve a dramatic purpose, as in the first chorus of "The Pa.s.sion according to St.

Matthew," where the two choirs, one representing _Daughters of Zion_, the other _Believers_, interrogate and answer each other thus:

I. "Come, ye daughters, weep for anguish; See Him!

II. "Whom?

I. "The Son of Man.

See Him!

II. "How?

I. "So like a lamb.

See it!

II. "What?

I. "His love untold.

Look!

II. "Look where?

I. "Our guilt behold."

[Sidenote: _Antiphony in a motet._]

Another most striking instance is in the same master's motet, "Sing ye to the Lord," which is written for two choirs of four parts each. (In the example from the "St. Matthew Pa.s.sion" there is a third choir of soprano voices which sings a chorale while the dramatic choirs are conversing.) In the motet the first choir begins a fugue, in the midst of which the second choir is heard shouting jubilantly, "Sing ye! Sing ye! Sing ye!" Then the choirs change roles, the first delivering the injunction, the second singing the fugue. In modern music, composers frequently consort a quartet of solo voices, soprano, contralto, tenor, and ba.s.s, with a four-part chorus, and thus achieve fine effects of contrast in dynamics and color, as well as antiphonal.

[Sidenote: _Excellence in choral singing._]

[Sidenote: _Community of action._]

[Sidenote: _Individualism._]

[Sidenote: _Dynamics._]

[Sidenote: _Beauty of tone._]

[Sidenote: _Contralto voices._]

The question is near: What const.i.tutes excellence in a choral performance? To answer: The same qualities that const.i.tute excellence in an orchestral performance, will scarcely suffice, except as a generalization. A higher degree of harmonious action is exacted of a body of singers than of a body of instrumentalists. Many of the parts in a symphony are played by a single instrument. Community of voice belongs only to each of the five bodies of string-players. In a chorus there are from twelve to one hundred and fifty voices, or even more, united in each part. This demands the effacement of individuality in a chorus, upon the a.s.sertion of which, in a band, under the judicious guidance of the conductor, many of the effects of color and expression depend. Each group in a choir must strive for h.o.m.ogeneity of voice quality; each singer must sink the _ego_ in the aggregation, yet employ it in its highest potency so far as the mastery of the technics of singing is concerned. In cultivating precision of attack (_i.e._, promptness in beginning a tone and leaving it off), purity of intonation (_i.e._, accuracy or justness of pitch--"singing in tune"

according to the popular phrase), clearness of enunciation, and careful attention to all the dynamic gradations of tone, from very soft up to very loud, and all shades of expression between, in the development of that gradual augmentation of tone called _crescendo_, and the gradual diminution called _diminuendo_, the highest order of individual skill is exacted from every chorister; for upon individual perfection in these things depends the collective effect which it is the purpose of the conductor to achieve. Sensuous beauty of tone, even in large aggregations, is also dependent to a great degree upon careful and proper emission of voice by each individual, and it is because the contralto part in most choral music, being a middle part, lies so easily in the voices of the singers that the contralto contingent in American choirs, especially, so often attracts attention by the charm of its tone. Contralto voices are seldom forced into the regions which compel so great a physical strain that beauty and character must be sacrificed to mere accomplishment of utterance, as is frequently the case with the soprano part.

[Sidenote: _Selfishness fatal to success._]

[Sidenote: _Tonal balance._]

Yet back of all this exercise of individual skill there must be a spirit of self-sacrifice which can only exist in effective potency if prompted by universal sympathy and love for the art. A selfish chorister is not a chorister, though possessed of the voice of a Melba or Mario. Balance between the parts, not only in the fundamental const.i.tution of the choir but also in all stages of a performance, is also a matter of the highest consideration. In urban communities, especially, it is difficult to secure perfect tonal symmetry--the rule is a poverty in tenor voices--but those who go to hear choral concerts are ent.i.tled to hear a well-balanced choir, and the presence of an army of sopranos will not condone a squad of tenors. Again, I say, better a well-balanced small choir than an ill-balanced large one.

[Sidenote: _Declamation._]

[Sidenote: _Expression._]

[Sidenote: _The choruses in "The Messiah."_]

[Sidenote: _Variety of declamation in Handel's oratorio._]

I have not enumerated all the elements which enter into a meritorious performance, nor shall I discuss them all; only in pa.s.sing do I wish to direct attention to one which shines by its absence in the choral performances not only of America but also of Great Britain and Germany. Proper p.r.o.nunciation of the texts is an obvious requirement; so ought also to be declamation. There is no reason why characteristic expression, by which I mean expression which goes to the genius of the melodic phrase when it springs from the verbal, should be ignored, simply because it may be difficult of attainment from large bodies of singers. There is so much monotony in oratorio concerts because all oratorios and all parts of any single oratorio are sung alike. Only when the "Hallelujah" is sung in "The Messiah" at the gracious Christmastide is an exaltation above the dull level of the routine performances noticeable, and then it is communicated to the singers by the act of the listeners in rising to their feet. Now, despite the structural sameness in the choruses of "The Messiah," they have a great variety of content, and if the characteristic physiognomy of each could but be disclosed, the grand old work, which seems hackneyed to so many, would acquire amazing freshness, eloquence, and power.

Then should we be privileged to note that there is ample variety in the voice of the old master, of whom a greater than he said that when he wished, he could strike like a thunderbolt. Then should we hear the tones of amazed adoration in

[Music ill.u.s.tration: Be-hold the Lamb of G.o.d!]

of cruel scorn in

[Music ill.u.s.tration: He trust-ed in G.o.d that would de-li-ver Him, let him de-li-ver him if he de-light in him.]

of boastfulness and conscious strength in

[Music ill.u.s.tration: Let us break their bonds a-sun-der.]

and learn to admire as we ought to admire the declamatory strength and truthfulness so common in Handel's choruses.

[Sidenote: _Mediaeval music._]

[Sidenote: _Madrigals._]

There is very little cultivation of choral music of the early ecclesiastical type, and that little is limited to the Church and a few choirs specially organized for its performance, like those that I have mentioned. This music is so foreign to the conceptions of the ordinary amateur, and exacts so much skill in the singing of the intervals, lacking the prop of modern tonality as it does, that it is seldom that an amateur body can be found equal to its performance.

Moreover, it is nearly all of a solemn type. Its composers were churchmen, and when it was written nearly all that there was of artistic music was in the service of the Church. The secular music of the time consisted chiefly in Madrigals, which differed from ecclesiastical music only in their texts, they being generally erotic in sentiment. The choristers of to-day, no less than the public, find it difficult to appreciate them, because they are not melodic in the sense that most music is nowadays. In them the melody is not the privileged possession of the soprano voice. All the voices stand on an equal footing, and the composition consists of a weaving together, according to scientific rules, of a number of voices--counterpoint as it is called.

[Sidenote: _h.o.m.ophonic hymns._]

[Sidenote: _Calvin's restrictive influence._]

Our hymn-tunes are h.o.m.ophonic, based upon a melody sung by one voice, for which the other voices provide the harmony. This style of music came into the Church through the German Reformation. Though Calvin was a lover of music he restricted its practice among his followers to unisonal psalmody, that is, to certain tunes adapted to the versified psalms sung without accompaniment of harmony voices. On the adoption of the Genevan psalter he gave the strictest injunction that neither its text nor its melodies were to be altered.

"Those songs and melodies," said he, "which are composed for the mere pleasure of the ear, and all they call ornamental music, and songs for four parts, do not behoove the majesty of the Church, and cannot fail greatly to displease G.o.d."

[Sidenote: _Luther and the German Church._]

Under the influence of the German reformers music was in a very different case. Luther was not only an amateur musician, he was also an ardent lover of scientific music. Josquin des Pres, a contemporary of Columbus, was his greatest admiration; nevertheless, he was anxious from the beginning of his work of Church establishment to have the music of the German Church German in spirit and style. In 1525 he wrote:

[Sidenote: _A German ma.s.s._]

"I should like to have a German ma.s.s, and I am indeed at work on one; but I am anxious that it shall be truly German in manner. I have no objection to a translated Latin text and Latin notes; but they are neither proper nor just (_aber es lautet nicht artig noch rechtschaffen_); text and notes, accent, melodies, and demeanor must come from our mother tongue and voice, else will it all be but a mimicry, like that of the apes."