Suggestions for a choir/schola wishing to branch out

amindthatsuits

OK--I tried this question last year, and all I got was tons of advice about my own personal failings. So I will now try it again. Listen carefully.

Suppose a person is starting a schola, or HAS STARTED a schola, to build a group in a diocese that can sing at parish Masses or at other settings. The Gregorian Chant aspect of it is simple enough. Anyone with common sense could build from simple settings to very difficult ones over time. Teach everyone the Missa de Angelis, and they go "oooh" and want to come back for more.

And suppose you use the Simple English Propers and everyone is good enough to handle those. You're going through Kevin Allen's beautiful works, and mining Corpus Christi Watershed and every other website there is. You listen to tons of stuff, and yet there is just so much. PLUS, it is not clear from listening which ones are in fact possible, and which ones require a rather higher level of skill. (E.g., I am not THAT familiar with his works, but Ockeghem seems to me to be WELL outside the range of a normal volunteer group.)

Of the composers from the Renaissance we all know and love, what SPECIFIC pieces would you recommend for such a group. No advice on managing a group. ONLY names of SPECIFIC 16th Century pieces that such a group could handle.

The upshot of everything the CMA does is to ENCOURAGE people to just this, and yet when I asked last year all I got was, "Do you realize what a commitment this takes?" So let's assume the commitment is there and the schola is in place.

Many thanks.

Kenneth

Charles in CenCA

Kenneth, perhaps you could visit Dr. Nestor armed with such queries, he's right there at BTR School, yes? But, I'll give it a try. You've gone through the Allen catalogue...okay.
Howabout pieces by Gomolka....Gesualdo....Luzzachi......Cellini.....Marenzio....and one of the Gabrieli's, the one who wasn't daft.
Or you could follow Cardinal Bartolucci's sage council: "The Song of Solomon" by- Palestrina.....Palestrina.....Palestrina.....Palestrina.....then onto.......Palestrina.
I went to undergrad with Dr. Nestor. We had to use the same literature survey texts replete with the gems. But then you discover at some point, those are only Rosetta Stones by which you are given a glimpse of galaxies of such "stars." Then, if you're inclined, you haunt music libraries in many universities domestic and foreign like our friends Drs. Shadle and O'Connor, digging for autographs and urtexts of the undiscovered. It's a discipline.
I'm not criticizing anything here. But, there are, OTOH, no shortcuts to discovering the inestimabile donum save plowing through via good old-fashioned audition and study. YMMV.

Adam Wood

My small choir's first foray into polyphony was Palestrina's "Adoramus Te," which can be found in the Catholic Choir Book. The text is a Good Friday Antiphon, but we used it an an Anthem on Passion Sunday. It is a special breed of what I like to call homophonic polyphony. That is, it is polyphonic in nature, but the words all line up with each other, which makes it a heckuva lot easier to sing.

The next thing we tried was the ever-popular Tallis "If Ye Love Me." (I think I got an arrangement off CPDL).

If I thought my congregation would be okay with it, I would start prepping the Brudieu Kyrie ( https://www.ccwatershed.org/store/item/brudieu-kyrie-satb-chant/ ) for use in Advent. It seems easyish, comes with practice videos, and strikes me as very appropriate musically for the Advent season.

Victoria's O Magnum Mysterium ( http://youtu.be/zeKvNxYMDxE ), which is a Christmas piece, is also within the abilities of an amateur but decent schola, and is also one of those "standards" that everyone just ought to know.

It is NOT 16th C, but very much sacred... Durufle's setting of Ubi Caritas is GORGEOUS ( http://youtu.be/l1BTWCpEFRQ ), and the text is appropriate thematically (lectionary-wise) for a handful of the Sundays in the month or two. (I know this because the G Chant original is in my choirs quick-rep list, and I'm planning to use it for an anthem in a few weeks).

noel jones, aago

You've stated the truth of the frustration many musicians are finding today. BI....Before Internet you relied upon the books that you sang from when you were a choir members to use with your new choir....now today, there are tons and tons of music available and it's very hard to know what to pick out and use. You can spend hours and digging and getting more and more frustrated and you come on here and get told that you HAVE TO SING something that someone has decided is what EVERY choir should sing and....you check it out to be polite and it's....dreck.

I'm going to plug The Catholic Choirbook Anthology I because I did it and it's free and there is a simple guide you may print out to use when using it to introduce music to a choir, starting from English and then moving into Latin...and learning one Latin text like Ave Verum and then singing it in five different versions. After all, people have a hard time learning to do two things at once....pronouncing Latin AND singing polyphony.

But there is another excellent source, in many ways far superior, I think, than what I have tried to do: choraltracks.com

If you merely sit and make a list of the music that he has picked, you get a ton of information by a first-class singer/conductor/musician/business person. Robert Shaw influenced all the high school choirs in Northern Ohio when he led the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus, which was packed full of high school choral directors driving, many of them, miles and miles just to sing and learn from him.

And now we have Matthew Curtis and, like Professor Mahrt, he's not just a singer/director, but a man with a mission to get music sung all over the world. Dr. Mahrt could have retired to his ivory tower and whined for years and years about the state of music in the Catholic church but instead he kept the St. Ann Choir going and pursued not just an academic career headed for retirement someday, but has pursued the preservation and encouragement of Catholic Music.

It is humbling to know that there is no little bell that rings when something here requires his attention, rather Dr. Mahrt follows this list and reads what drivel some of us, 'specially me, write and then leans over and gives us a word....

Matthew Curtis....visit his site, consider him a mentor.

M & M. Matthew and Mahrt, not a bad combination.

amindthatsuits

I just did some recording with the young genius that is sort of Leo's number one student right now, but I cannot remember the last time that I actually ran into Leo . I could ask the grad student who is conducting the Town – and – gown choir these days; actually, everyone's back, so as soon as I find out who that is this year I will get a hold of him. But in general, I do not like to bother full professors with questions about local choir director type things. I don't have faculty benefits, and so I pay for my lessons myself. And they are doing music on a very high-level.

However, I had forgotten that you had put together that choir book, Frogman (if I may use your first name), and I know that you were on the front lines, so it makes the most amount of sense.

What the question is not for me. I just realized that my skills are Gregorian chant have gotten good enough that I could map out exactly what the choir would or would not be able to do based on the musicians I have. I've led bands before, and I was generally counted very good at finding music that people could do properly.

But Jeff keeps recommending that newbies got on the form to find the answers to their questions, and yet I find there are questions on there that a newbie might ask. In the run-up to the new translation, I deliberately asked very basic questions in the most useful form that I could think of, and sure enough when I enter them in Google the questions popped up in the first list of answers. So it was mainly to get an answer that could be used as a reference that I came up with. More answers would of course be greatly appreciated.

Your description of what happens if somebody just jumps in is exactly right. You end up getting very frustrated, and you don't know if the other person has some kind of quirk.

Very useful, and thank you very much.

noel jones, aago

Well, to be honest we have a Quirk and his first name is Jeffrey.

hartleymartin

For motets, Palestrina's "Sicut Cervus" is a staple. Viadana's "Exulatate Justi in Domino" is a upbeat and jolly - great for feast days. Arcadelt's "Ave Maria" is good for Marian feasts - not difficult, but can be very pretty when done well. Tye's "Laudate Nomen Domini" is another great piece.

Have you thought about holding a regular "Gregorian Mass" where most of the music is Latin Chant?

amindthatsuits

All these answers have been extremely helpful. The more the merrier however so keep going – although with fewer puns about quirk!

Chant is something that I've spent thousands of dollars and many years learning about, and it is something that is relatively easy to study on your own once you get a good grounding in it. For one thing, you can sing all the parts at once by yourself! I just realized that I have reached a level where no piece presents any particular mysteries for me, and leading the choir and chant mass would be a matter of organization and preparation, not learning the basics, just going deeper. There is always something new to learn.

But with coral music, collective experience is much, much better: what looks easy on the page and sounds really simple my in fact present performance difficulties that a volunteer schola simply can't meet. Last time I asked, someone in fact gave very practical advice about looking for music where coming in will not pose too much of a problem for any one voice. That's the kind of stuff that you can see on the page once someone with some experience tells you.

But there's no beating having access to so many highly talented and experienced people, and lists of practical things to choose can only make everyone's life easier, and local masses a better experience.

Kenneth

E_A_Fulhorst

I love coral music.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8OBlq_svBY

What? It isn't a pun on "quick!"

amindthatsuits

, I'm tired. I should've waited until I got back to the office for the keyboard instead of depending on Siri, who is very temperamental. One garlic

In my previous one says that Jeff keeps encouraging newbies to get on this list, but there are FEW questions that a newbie might ask. There is a lot of stuff that presupposes some understanding larger than I think many volunteer music directors have. I will edit my previous responses when I get back to school tomorrow. My home computer is out.

amindthatsuits

Groan! That was a groaner of a pun.

amindthatsuits

Oh, I see that Siri tripped me up in that response as well. Ha, Ha. I'm tired. School starts in five days, and I was actually taking a break by getting on the forum from preparing syllabi.

Charles in CenCA

Kenneth, what I ought to have more directly said is that a choral director must program not unlike an orchestral/wind band conductor, according to the strengths, the timbres, the ranges and the musicality levels of the group as comprised and assessed as individuals.
I don't want to appear dismissive, but we have a penchant for responding to such repertoire questions with the same titles over and over ad nauseum. That's not to declare Sicut Cervus or If ye love me as unworthy, it's simply reflexive thinking.
I remember when teaching high school that at every major festival, with big gun HS programs, every director jockeyed to make sure that a Lauridsen, or Whitacre or Taverner piece was in their rotation, or that an 8 part Moses Hogan kick butt spiritual would close their program. Others would insure to have Rach's Bogoriditze from Vesper's in full blossom. Again, reflexive, strategic thinking to what end? If Lauridsen, one could guarantee it would be "O magnum" or "Dirait on" most likely; if Whitacre "Water Night" or "Lux Arumque" or other signature pieces. Rarely would you find works by such that were unique in the composers' vocabulary oveure. Even more rare were any choirs attempting to do major works of the 19th century besides Durufle's Ubi. But one year I decided to have the big choir sing a chestnut I'd never heard outside of my own church choir stalls, Faure's "Jean Racine." The kids' sense of ensemble was immaculate and they could tune, the basses were deep and their diction and elocution was consistent and responsive to do the French with aplomb. To sum up, you orchestrate the voices and whole instruments you have towards certain pieces. You don't impose repertoire choices (you sang in undergrad choirs) that were your favorites just because you like them.
If a choir's going to sing "Sicut" they not only must be inculcated with basic techniques, but also an appreciation that its textures aren't abstract and pristine arsis/thesis text painting, but there is a deeper romanticism that must be delicately attended. If you want to sing a Cantate Domino, you may easily flip a coin between the seemingly more accessible Pitoni and the more demanding Hassler, and in the process miss a wonderful setting by at modern composer named Lazlo Halmos.
This sort of research is still necessary. And as Liam illustrates, YouTube is a resource we all wish we had forty years ago. But you must have a frame of reference by which you establish what traits you want your ensemble to demonstrate as flawlessly and beautifully as possible. Know the choir in front of you, not a choir in your head and memory from a video or recording.

Jeffrey Quick

A sweet and underdone piece is the Fogliano Ave Maria:
http://www2.cpdl.org/wiki/images/f/fe/Ave_maria_fogliano.pdf
In this transposition, the T and B are a little high; you might want to try it a step down.

Don't do any Quick! Seriously, I do try to keep it as easy as I can, but I don't do simple well.

While looking for this on cpdl, I encountered the Neukomm Missa Ruralis (on Hössl's site), which I was quite taken with. 1 medium voice or unison voices, and he has a 2-part version he did.

Charles in CenCA

Yes, JQ! We programmed it in May and 'twas a small gem! We found it via Noel's Anthology.

amindthatsuits

Yes, well I do a lot of listening and reading myself, and Peter Latona seems to have been to every monastic library in Italy, because he comes up with 16th Century settings from composers that I can hardly find a footprint for anywhere else. In keeping with JAT's "lost master" series of videos, I found a gorgeous Machaut Mass concert which I will post shortly.

So I am on my way to see the Grand Canyon. My question is really to help the people that JAT says this forum is for. Having gone through Corpus Christi Watershed, and doing their chant, they are about to leave the driveway and head toward the Grand Canyon themselves. Do they turn left or right? What should they see along the way?

Mr. Quick, those are great suggestions in the spirit of things.

Kenneth

Abbot Jonathan Coel

Any such choir should have the following pieces in their repetoire.

Ave verum corpus - Byrd
Sicut cervus - Palestrina
O magnum mysterium - Victoria
Exsultate justi - Viadana
Ave Maria - Adcadelt
Cantate Domino - Pitoni and Hassler
Jesu dulcis memoria - Victoria
Laudate Dominum - Tye
O bone Jesu - Paslestrina
O sacrum convivium - Paslestrina, Victoria, Lassus and Gibbons
Ave Maria - Robert Parsons
Jubilate Deo - Hassler

(Among many others as well. Also, look at the ChoralWiki site for additional great pieces.)

DougS

Many of the Introits and Communions from Isaac's Choralis Constantinus are manageable--not necessarily easy, but manageable and beautiful, especially for a group grounded in Gregorian chant (since these works are based on chant propers).

amindthatsuits

Great suggestions. Just what I wanted. I can see how the Fogliano would be easily tackled--few rhythmic difficulties at all.

I particularly liked the Tye. Here is a nice video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85pXsT2vt88

amindthatsuits

And I love Parsons. Here is the most famous of all college choirs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2WrDvI847g

Adam Wood

Loving this thread, as you all know I run a small choir.

Any good standards in English?

amindthatsuits

In English. Now I am on a Parsons kick. This one sounds like it might be beyond a normal parish choir, but a longstanding group with experience?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhXoete8tkA&feature=fvst

noel jones, aago

Any such choir should have the following pieces in their repertoire, says the Abbot.

And if they have The Catholic Choirbook Anthology 1 they already have almost all of these. Which ones are missing from the Anthology, can you guess?

www.thecatholicchoirbook.com

It's free, people, free! CPDL is a grand resource, though TCCA 1 has complete rehearsal piano parts and a consistent layout. Plus Catholic hymns in the back in English, including well-loved ones that older people love to hear.

It's designed as a transitional book...sing an old hymn, sing a newer hymn, sing an English anthem, sing a Latin motet....

Ave verum corpus - Byrd
Sicut cervus - Palestrina
O magnum mysterium - Victoria
Exsultate justi - Viadana
Ave Maria - Adcadelt
Cantate Domino - Pitoni and Hassler
Jesu dulcis memoria - Victoria
Laudate Dominum - Tye
O bone Jesu - Paslestrina
O sacrum convivium - Paslestrina, Victoria, Lassus and Gibbons
Ave Maria - Robert Parsons
Jubilate Deo - Hassler

Printed, bound and shipped on sale for $15 right now. Hardbound also on sale.

Richard Mix

Noel, you might want to edit the link above; I got curious about the Gibbons O Sacrum, which I presume might be a contrafact, but even with google it took a long time to get to a preview of your anthology, which as it turns out doesn't list the work in the contents.

Btw, should the Bruckner Ave Maria really appear in the voicing index as a 5-part piece, SATTB? I reckon SSAATT(T)BB(B).

noel jones, aago

Thanks, but you have missed the point, the question, can you guess which one/s is/are not in the book. And thanks for the mention of how hard it was to find the details, the software I use did a great revision that however requires some work to get things right and I will put that on my schedule for tomorrow. I'll post when I have it updated.

No, I would not list the Bruckner that way....if you were to do a search on the net you will find various ways of listing it, feel free to list it that way in your version if you like.

donr

Frogman, I have downloaded TCCA and I love it.
I will be purchase my bound copy next month.
My question is do I need to purchase all the volumes or is number 1. sufficient for now?

amindthatsuits

What a wonderful book, Frogman!! I love it. Kenneth

amindthatsuits

I should add, and keep forgetting to, that of course each year the Colloquium offers a whole packet of new material, so if you can't go, you can download that and have some focus to your attempts to expand your repetoire. Just make a donation!! (I have not connection to CMAA except membership.)

Charles in CenCA

I'm sure Noel would love it if more DM's would purchase choir sets! (I got two sets, one for rehearsal room, another for the church, and @$17, still worth it!)

noel jones, aago

Donr, The Anthology I is the best good music out of Choirbooks 1-5. I recommend getting Choirbook 1 for copying some Marian things and others that are Catholic but not great....or in some cases, even good....music but useful and people love them...but I'd just get the free download of Choirbook 1 and see if you want to buy the book or just copy...

Everyone is invited to download all of them for free, especially the Anthology 1.

In addition, there is great music in 1-5 that did not make it into the Anthology because of difficulty and number of parts, those too, I also recommend getting and copying.

Buy the Anthology, copy most of the rest.

Yes, the CMAA annual offerings shoudl be in your library too. It helps to 3 hole punch and store them and others in a master binder....which I did at my church and I was deposed and thought what can I do now? And that started the series.

I do have a 3 part book in the works slowly coming along. I've got a non-CMAA music major project going (even hired a very experienced editor) that should help to support this work and give me time to devote.

amindthatsuits

I don't have Noel's wonderful book in front of me, but add to things that, by the way they lie on the page, a choir of limited experience could handle, add Morales' stunning Parce Mihi Domine. As with the March from Purcell's Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary, it seems to be in effect ""just"" (!) a chord progression. The voices rarely are not in unison, and the common note value is a half note. Now that I have listened to it ten times, the biggest thing would be breathing. A chord progression, but one really spiffing one. Not a denigration--just pointing out it could be tackled.

PeterG

amindthatsuits,

I would be interested in checking out Morales' 'Parce Mihi Domine' which you mentioned. I don't think it's in Noel's excellent The Catholic Choirbook series. Can anyone point me to an edition that would work for SATB? (A quick look on Choral Wiki doesn't seem to yield one.)

amindthatsuits

Did you look at cpdl.org ? They have three different arrangements in three different keys. The original appears NOT to be for SATB, but I didn't look at the others.

Perhaps people with more experience can make a suggestion.
Kenneth

Adam Wood

I just recently discovered Durufle's Ubi Caritas.
(Not Public Domain, BTW).

I was blown away. And (although I may find out otherwise when I start working on it with my choir), it seems totally do-able.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=457nVpxJDkA

redsox1

Don't forget the "Ave Maria" setting by Victoria. Also, there is the "Christus factus est "setting by Anerio (one of my favorite Palm Sunday anthems) as well as the "Regina Coeli" of Aichinger for the Easter season. Viadana's "O Sacrum Convivium" is also a thought.

Gavin

"it seems totally do-able."

Do-able, yes. Do-well-able, not so much.

A friend of mine recommended the Notre Pere by Durufle. Are you familiar with it? It can easily be done as 4 part or unison, I've been told.

Adam Wood

Really? You think the Ubi Caritas would be too hard?

Gavin

Given the description of your choir you've given on your blog, yes, I think a 6 voice motet with that kind of harmony could be beyond them, though you have to make that decision for yourself. Or at least I would have doubts about how well it could be pulled off. I'm not one to get too picky about exactly correct performance (or even "good" performance), but I think something like that would take a lot of time and talent to pull off. There's a LOT of tricks to learning it, especially in the tenor lines.

Adam Wood

Thanks for your thoughts.
I actually found a 4-part adaptation (I think it's 5 voice originally, not 6) that I'm going to try.

Anywho- I'm going to see how it goes. My choir sometimes seriously impresses me, so I figure I should at least give it a try.

I'll let everyone know how it goes.

canadash

Many of the singers in my choir do not read. We've been singing the Ubi Caritas - Durufle for many years. Even if you don't sing it this year, keep at it. It will come and it is worth it.

marajoy

I'd like to suggest that Durufle's Ubi is one of those pieces that might be learned even better by ear, (away from not only the "tyranny of the barline," but also allowing the singers to become so comfortable with it aurally- not note reading - that it will sound even more like chant.) And if the individual singers listen to their own parts as well as the overall harmony many many times, then I think it is not out of reach for most amateur choirs.

Andrew Motyka

If you haven't been able to catch up with Dr. Nestor, you might try to catch Dr. Kevin O'Brian, who also has an encyclopedic knowledge of choral literature. He's also a director in town, just like you.

His knowledge of literature might not be as vast as Dr. Nestor's, but whose is?

Gavin

My main church's choir recently did a Richard Proulx setting with optional handbells which was much less interesting but still nice. You might look into that to prepare them for the Durufle.

I'm all about pushing choirs (and I've had the bad Sundays to prove it), but I think this particular piece is a real stretch for most choirs. Unless they've done 5-6 voice music regularly, and secundal harmony, I'd avoid it - though certainly work them up to that level with all haste!

I'll be interested to hear how the four-part version goes, of course.

Adam Wood

Since we know the original very well, and since I had it planned for the "Anthem" this coming Sunday, and since the refrain of Durufle's is the original melody, harmonized, I put together a combo of the Durufle harmonization on the Antiphon, paired with monophonic (the original) verses.

At choir practice last night, the 5 measures of the harmonized antiphon took pretty much all night. It ended up well, and I believe it will work this coming Sunday. But if I wanted to use the entire piece for Holy Thursday of 2013, I think we should probably start working on it now. Considering my somewhat ambitious (for us) Advent and Christmas programming... we shall see.

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