Easter Plans 2010

Hm. Makes me wonder if there’s an accessible “cantata” setting of Christ’s words on the cross? Surely there is a Llyod Larson or Joseph Martin-type treatment.

A. Hommerding has a setting of the last seven sayings of Christ. It’s for unison voices, but it may give you a solo or kid’s choir or something.

The easiest one to find will probably be “It Is Finished.” Everybody from Gaither to Hamilton has a setting.

Craig Courtney has an “I Thirst.” Text by Pamela Martin.

Pepper Choplin has a “Father, Forgive Them.”

Doesn’t Koerts have a “Paradise”? I can’t remember exactly, but think it at least referenced Christ on the cross. From SoundForth.

For “Why Hast Thou Forsaken” you may need to try Psalm 22 settings. Ellingbow has a great one in his REQUIEM. Not exactly average church choir material, but I did it with a choir of non-auditioned high schoolers. I think he uses the title “My God, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?”

The only “Into Your Hands” I could find is by F. Ferko publisher by Schirmer for a cappella. I’ve not seen it, but my guess is it’s not what you’re looking for.

I’m in the pushing stage of Christmas right now. You know, making the ideas I’ve been dreaming about actually happen. Wish I was in the brainstorming or researching or planning stages, though. I like those much better, frankly :-) But what we do in the next four weeks will determine what our Christmas presentation will be!

Dave

Anthony, when you finalize your cantata, can you post the songs you chose?

I’ve looked at several of Schram’s “cantatas” (cantati?) and felt the same way: “Nice, but not captivating.” If we’re gonig to live with this thing for the next 3 months, it better be substantial enough to hold our interest!

We’re doing Martin’s WHO IS THIS KING? Hopefully I’ll have better success balancing the orchestrations this time around. So many orchestrations are for recording purposes and create huge balance issues when done live.

Dave

I do hope you do well with the orchestration, Dave. We just finished Martin’s The Mystery and the Majesty for Christmas, and we used the orchestration. Pastor said this may be the last time we use an orchestration, and that he won’t use any more from that source. I heartily wish producers of accompaniment tracks would use a metronome and balance out the volume before finalizing their recordings. Don’t they realize how vital a steady, discernable beat is to a recorded track? *sigh*

Thankfully, the cantata turned out well, but not without a great deal of anxiety on Pastor’s part over the direction.

That is interesting Angela. The orch tracks had a lot of rubato in them? Rubato is great and adds tremendously to the impact, but can be difficult to handle. The producers certainly know the pros and cons of rubato but may have overestimated a typical choir’s ability to follow it.

Regarding balancing the volume (mastering), I am a big fan of that of leaving the dynamic contrast in there as much as possible (as they seem to have done). You want to have very soft sounds and very large sounds in a production like that. In fact, one of the sad aspects of much modern recording is that is mastered to a point where there is no dynamic variety.

Rubato - (I confess, I had to look up the term). Yes, there was a good deal of it. While it may sound good on the demo, it was extremely difficult for our small choir to follow. We have a 17-member choir, with two choir speakers, and a monitor for the director as our only sources for hearing the music. It just made it so much more difficult to follow along when, mid-phrase, the orchestra would slow down for a couple measures, then ramp back up again. Whatever emotion we might have put into such a choice was lost in our trying to just match the lyrics with the notes at the appropriate tempo. It’s one thing to have a slower section then go back to an original tempo. It’s another thing to direct 17 singers, most of whom have no vocal training and are very dependent on their music, and have multiple passages that vary randomly in their tempo.

When the accompaniment itself also drastically varies in volume, it makes it hard for the director to even hear whether he’s still on the beat, nevermind the singers trying to reconcile what they’re almost hearing with the movement of his hands. And in a small sanctuary, having 17 voices trying to match the dynamic variation that a full orchestra is capable of becomes nearly impossible if there hasn’t been some mastering applied. We couldn’t hear the softest portions at all, and we couldn’t hear ourselves during the loudest ones.

It would seem to me that the majority of those who would be using an accompaniment track would be small groups who either don’t have a musician or would like to give theirs a break for a special production like a Christmas cantata. It would be nice to encounter a background track that took the needs of such groups into consideration. Our ladies ensemble uses a track as well, and we are forever frustrated by the chronic lack of a discernible beat in the track - just little “signposts” to let us know we’re still where we need to be amid all the flourishes and tinkling triangles. Is that too much to ask? :D

All this is, of course, from the choir loft’s perspective. We got lots of lovely comments afterward about how much people enjoyed it. ;) We just felt like, in the end, the track was more of a hindrance to a good performance than a help (although our pianist might disagree - she was enormously grateful to have the opportunity to sing and a break from the practice she normally must put in at Christmastime).

“In fact, one of the sad aspects of much modern recording is that is mastered to a point where there is no dynamic variety.” Hear, hear!

But to Angela’s point … recorded accompaniment tracks are both a blessing and a burden for the exact reasons she so cleary stated. I’ve always been too much of a control freak to be able to follow a recording. When I don’t have a pianist, we work to sing unconducted and I just play. (Thank the LORD for parents with the spiritual foresight to make me take piano lessons!) It’s always been my opinion that singing with a recording means you have to be able to follow the ryhthm easily. Thus, it works best with musical styles that use a more dominant rhythm than I typically use. Or your other option is to practice with the recording. A lot. I would think (Again, I’ve not sung or directed a lot with recordings.) that an ensemble would need 1/3 more rehearsal time to get the tempos into their collective musical memory. This seems to work well for ensembles that rely heavily on part demonstration recordings to learn their music and/or groups that memorize all the music.

And FWIW, the companies that make the recordings are typically not so interested in reasonable orchestrations and consistent “follow-able” tempos. Those things don’t sell music. Lush orchestrations and “passionate,” “emotional” singing sell recordings.

Someone told me once that the way he chose choir music was to put the recoding on while he was driving, the volume on low. When a song captured his attention and made him turn up the volume, he would note it. (Always reminds of the way Puccini would compose in the pub. When everyone stopped talking to listen, he knew he had a hit opera tune!) There is some truth to the fact that the music must have a raison d’être. (One of my teachers called it “the joy of the song.” What effect is this music supposed to have? What is it designed to do?) But it leaves out an equally important facet of choosing music: Will this song work with my group? Are the things I want to change (tempo, mood, dynamics, even rhythms) able to be changed without affecting the “joy of the song”—the very fabric of the music? And are the difficulties worth the time it will take me to work them out? (Specifically: Is it worth the extra time to practice with the recording, collectively or individually, until the piece is basically memorized so that we can have the London Philharmonic accompanying us?) These questions can’t be answered from merely being wowed by a recording.

For the record, I was actually talking about live orchestra. On a recording, they balance the instruments so that you can clearly hear the solo flute line over the brass ensemble. But acoustically it is a problem :-) And don’t even get me started on thick orchestration over a ladies unison in the lower register. Ugh!

Dave

Are you looking for authentic early American or “sounds like” :-) Joseph Martin’s “Sunrise, Resurrection” has that folk Americana feel though, of course, it’s modern. For legit stuff, you could consult DeVenney, David P.

“Early American choral music: an annotated guide.” Berkeley, Calif.: Fallen Leaf Press, c1988. [MUSIC REF. ML128.V7 D43 1988]

Dave

HA! Speaking of Mormons … . Has Mack Wilberg done a setting of “Amazing Grace”? I know he’s set several American hymns. Though his settings usually require divisi and … ahem … a larger choir :-)

I am ashamed to say that I don’t have an “Amazing Grace” that I use with my choir. *hangs head in shame* I’ll have to check out Parker-Shaw.

Love the 1835 angle! Hey, in 25 years we can do a 200th anniversery celebration of Walker’s hymnal and the famous tune/text wedding! Am I remembering correctly that SOUTHERN HARMONY was published in Spartenburg, SC? It’s been a while since I taught hymnology … .

Dave