CE Choir of Royal Holloway, University of London 15th Feb 2012

[ardcarp]

GJ. I did wonder if you'd reply to my (#13) sweeping generalisation! Another way of putting it is that if any music student in the 3rd quarter of the 20th century served up a concatenation of nice-sounding chords as his/her composition exercise, it would have been laughed off the campus. I do not say that was a good thing, but maybe we have forgotten what 'difficult' is for singers. The Part canticles may be 'difficult' in the sense of sustaining a tight performance, but notewise? Surely not. Some may remember the John Alldis singers who tackled some fearsome repertory. And maybe we should celebrate a present-day group such as Exaudi which is not afraid to programme and perform stuff which is challenging both for them and their audience.

[Gabriel Jackson]

GJ. I did wonder if you'd reply to my (#13) sweeping generalisation! Another way of putting it is that if any music student in the 3rd quarter of the 20th century served up a concatenation of nice-sounding chords as his/her composition exercise, it would have been laughed off the campus. I do not say that was a good thing, but maybe we have forgotten what 'difficult' is for singers. The Part canticles may be 'difficult' in the sense of sustaining a tight performance, but notewise? Surely not. Some may remember the John Alldis singers who tackled some fearsome repertory. And maybe we should celebrate a present-day group such as Exaudi which is not afraid to programme and perform stuff which is challenging both for them and their audience.

Why did you wonder? Because your silly comments were directed at me?

Tallis "If ye love me" is not difficult, notewise, either - does that mean it is not worth performing? Of course not.

If it is not necessarily a good thing that "a concatenation of nice-sounding chords" would have been "laughed of the campus" why bother to raise it?

Yes, the John Alldis Choir did fantastic work in the 1960s and 1970s with very difficult contemporary repertoire but they were highly able professional singers. Were student choirs doing the same music? No they weren't.

Yes, EXAUDI do challenging and difficult work extremely well. So, of course, do the BBC Singers, who are regularly villified here for no good reason (and several of whose staff members and deputies also sing with EXAUDI).

[ardcarp]

My 'silly comments' were not directed at you, GJ, and if you remember I posted a while ago to say how much I enjoyed one of your recent broadcast pieces (something to do with aeroplanes? ) It's just because we both ride hobby horses, and to quote W.S.Gilbert, They clash, my lords, they clash.

[ardcarp]

Were student choirs doing the same music? No they weren't.

P.S. Yes they were.

[DracoM]

They most certainly were, because I took part in some!!

GJ, tut, tut, there are times...................!!

[jean]

I was in student choirs in the 1960s, and we never did anything very difficult.

But without some actual examples of the challenging contemporary repertoire we're talking about, this is a pretty pointless discussion. Let's all dig out some old concert programmes, then we'll know.

[Gabriel Jackson]

I was in student choirs in the 1960s, and we never did anything very difficult.

But without some actual examples of the challenging contemporary repertoire we're talking about, this is a pretty pointless discussion. Let's all dig out some old concert programmes, then we'll know.

Quite!

Birtwistle: ...agm...
Birtwistle: On the sheer threshold of the night
Stravinsky: Requiem Canticles
Messiaen: Cinq rechants
Elisabeth Lutyens: Motet
Malcolm Williamson: Symphony for Voices

...just a few pieces the John Alldis Choir were performing in the 60s and 70s. What student choirs were singing these pieces?!

[ardcarp]

I'll make this my Last Post on the subject because it's becoming a slanging match. But I'd just mention that the director of our student chamber choir was terrific in his programming which included a lot of (then) contemporary music including Stravinsky, Britten, Tippett, Walton, Joubert, Rawsthorne, Messaien, Lutyens, McConchy, Dallapiccola, Gordon Crosse and loads more I've forgotten. One of the latter's pieces..it began "Battered from the crystal pinnacles"...I remember as being particularly taxing. Then we fiddled about with some aleatoric stuff; quite challenging. I'm not claiming our performances were brilliant or 'professional' but I would argue that our horizons were set wide. It made sight-reading in my job on the side (choral scholar/lay clerk around the corner) a bit of a doddle. I'd just mention my awe and respect for Cathy Berberian who tackled the most phenomenally difficult repertoire, and I remember making it an aim (not quite achieved alas) to be able to pick notes out of the ether as she did.

[Gabriel Jackson]

I'll make this my Last Post on the subject because it's becoming a slanging match. But I'd just mention that the director of our student chamber choir was terrific in his programming which included a lot of (then) contemporary music including Stravinsky, Britten, Tippett, Walton, Joubert, Rawsthorne, Messaien, Lutyens, McConchy, Dallapiccola, Gordon Crosse and loads more I've forgotten. One of the latter's pieces..it began "Battered from the crystal pinnacles"...I remember as being particularly taxing. Then we fiddled about with some aleatoric stuff; quite challenging. I'm not claiming our performances were brilliant or 'professional' but I would argue that our horizons were set wide. It made sight-reading in my job on the side (choral scholar/lay clerk around the corner) a bit of a doddle. I'd just mention my awe and respect for Cathy Berberian who tackled the most phenomenally difficult repertoire, and I remember making it an aim (not quite achieved alas) to be able to pick notes out of the ether as she did.

That was unusual, surely, as well as enterprising! I do think that choirs like Royal Holloway today are far more wide-ranging and adventurous in their repertoire than their forbears were forty years ago, by and large. (On another note, when I was a chorister at Canterbury in the early 70s, the Tippett canticles which we had in repertoire, were not widely sung. Now they are, often by choirs would never had attempted them forty years ago.)

[Wolsey]

Quite!

Birtwistle: ...agm...
Birtwistle: On the sheer threshold of the night
Stravinsky: Requiem Canticles
Messiaen: Cinq rechants
Elisabeth Lutyens: Motet
Malcolm Williamson: Symphony for Voices

...just a few pieces the John Alldis Choir were performing in the 60s and 70s. What student choirs were singing these pieces?!

I can own up to singing Stravinsky's Requiem Canticles at the RAM while spending my gap-year there before heading to Cambridge; John Carewe was the conductor. A few years before that, I enjoyed learning and performing Paul Patterson's Kyrie (under his direction) in the RAM Junior Exhibitioners' Choir.