Here is an inspiring choral example that I came across on youtube of a Russian Orthodox All Male Choir. I wish more Catholic Churches had a similar red blooded all male choir as the norm.
Yea, it maketh the heart glad. The closest that we westerners come to this is Anglican and Catholic choirs of men and boys in England and (a meager) two or three or four places in the US. Plus the all men's voices at some Episcopal seminaries and military academy chapels in the US.
You are right, though. Ecclesiastically, we are a relative cultural wasteland - though there are an appreciable number of oases to be found. Still, I would want our all male choirs singing Byrd and Bruckner, not aping the easterns - for reason, we do have our own glorious patrimony of music.
Welsh coal miners, and rugby football enthusiasts? Music starts about one minute in. This was a musical tradition embracing both chapels and drinking clubs.
A F HAWKINS - so true! I am of Welsh descent and from my earliest childhood memories, singing seemed so extremely natural and normal.
MJO - yes! We westerners have an extremely glorious musical heritage. However, it is a pity we are seemingly losing it for various reasons as you know. I recall singing in men and boy choirs with 30 to 45 men and 40 to 60 boys every Sunday; everything from chants, Howells, Victoria, Byrd, Gibbons, Lassus, Brahms, Bach, Bruckner, etc. - literally hundreds of anthems, masses, motets, canticles, hymns every year. Everything in the Mass was chanted and sung by everyone.
What I admire about the Orthodox choirs, seminarians and clergy, is that almost every single one of them have been taught to sing correctly from an anatomical perspective - both in choral / chant style and soloistic manner. For the few of us in the know, it is of the highest critical importance that men's organizations like choirs, acolytes, deacons and Holy Name Societies thrive and flourish. Sadly, the opposite seems a reality. I do not believe western Christianity is dying, just being refined in GOD's divine furnace and the dross consigned to their reward.
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