Overcoming "Midwestern accent" - and other things
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,368
    Paix asks about the 'historically informed' problem -
    As pertaining to pronunciation -

    Imitating the scholarly informed speech of past eras is not something that most of us have the knowledge and available scholars and scholarship to bring about. I have done alternatim organ literature employing a dated French accent for the Latin chant. I have never tried this approach for non-liturgical presentations of any choral music of any era. If I were sure of my scholarship in these matters I should consider myself remiss and negligent in not employing it. Singing at mass is another matter. Here, the best diction of our day is appropriate unless one has a congregation of musicians who wouldn't be put off or spiritually distracted by other linguistic habits.

    I should think, though, that for our most lauded 'period performance' institutions to give no thought to the matter of 'period and place' authenticity of language is sloppy. Ditto, their glib failure to utilise 'authentic period instruments' in the performance of treble choral parts, namely, boys, not women. I have heard two marvelously scintillating and excruciatingly perfect as concerns choral intonation and tone performances of Monteverdi's vespers of 1610. Both were here in Houston and will remain two of the most memorable performances of my life. One was by Ars Lyrica, headed by the UofH's Matthew Dirst, and the more recent one was by the group known as Apollo's Fire (Matthew's was the best). The renaissance-early baroque instruments were an intellectual balm, and the singing and intonation impeccable. All of this with widely acclaimed 'authenticity' - except for the lack of boy trebles and period speech. If one is going to go 'all the way' then one needs to go all the way.
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,451
    Church choirs are not cover bands.

    The best thing you can do for a choir is to help it find its own voice, in whatever music it is singing, and then improve that voice over time.Technique and pronunciation issues need to be dealt with and addressed, but not in order to mimic some idealized English choir (or radio praise band), but rather to draw out the best possible performance, which includes a euphony of sound and the ability for listeners to understand the text.
    Thanked by 5M. Jackson Osborn dad29 TL Gavin noel jones, aago
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,768
    B. Glottalising the t too much.
    Might you explain a little? My imagination isn't quite up to this!
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,046
    We don't hear"original instrument" choral music for the same reason we don't hear "original instrument" male soprano roles: the instruments don't exist. With early onset of puberty, a boy soprano now is a different and far less experienced musician than the boys of Monteverdi or Bach. As far as HIP pronunciation, my understanding is that Roman Latin has been decreed the norm for the American Church, and that's good enough for me. I've worked a little with period English, have "Singing Early Music" on my home bookshelf...and can do without hearing "Credo in ünüm DeÜM" one more time.
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,605
    Aren't most choirs like a cover band?


    If they are, the director has failed. This isn't paint-by-numbers.
    Thanked by 5M. Jackson Osborn TL MatthewRoth Adam Wood CHGiffen
  • M. Jackson Osborn
    Posts: 8,368
    Goodness, then!
    Someone should inform the choirmasters and the boys of all those English cathedral choirs, and St Thomas' Church in New York, and Washington Cathedral, and Bach's Tomanerchor in Leipzig, and quite a few others. I don't think that they are aware of this.
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