Splitting up the propers in a mixed ensemble

trentonjconn

For those of you who direct a mixed ensemble that sings all of the propers, do you make sure to only have men/women singing a particular antiphon, or do you permit the mixing of octaves? Do you just have the men sing the propers and utilize the female voices for ordinaries/motets/hymns? If the men and the women are both singing the propers, which are sung by the men and which are sung by the women?

I've been having the whole mixed ensemble sing all of the propers and I'm leaning towards splitting them up men/women, but I want to make sure I do so in a way that doesn't put them off. I'm pretty confident that I'd like the men to sing the introit and the ladies to sing the communion, but I wanted to get input from the hive mind as to how to split up the rest of them.

Andrew_Malton

We prefer to sing in unison, but we are so few (two or three women and two or three men) and we also prefer not to have extended solos. So, at present we do this:

* Someone (rotating by week) sings the incipits of the proper; and someone else, of the other voice, the incipits of the ordinary.
* The voice that sings the proper incipits
* The psalm verses are sung half by the men alone, and half then by all.
* The men sing the gradual responsory, with two (or only one when necessary) singing the verse. And something similar for the tract.
* The women sing the Alleluia with its verse.
* The introit and offertory and communion, and the ordinary, we sing in parallel octaves.
* When we sing a motet it's always at the offertory and usually mixed.
* Hymns are sung SATB.
* We have started using a... keyboard... which sometimes accidentally gets called an “organ”. It is played when the faithful sing: the hymns, the ordinary, and half the responses.

emac3183

We sing 3 gregorian propers at our weekly high Mass, and here is my current structure:
Introit and Offertory, full choir in octaves, I sing the incipit and first half of introit verse.
Communion, paid section leaders (4 SATB + me, a tenor) in octaves, I or section leader sings incipit and first half of each verse (done in couplets).

I did this as I began teaching my chant interpretation (essentially Solesmes, highly influenced by Jennifer Donelson-Nowicka's approach).

This year I plan to take the following approach:
status quo for the first month or so, and then...
Introit (men), I/group of three pros sing the incipit and first half of verse
Offertory (women) incipit sung by my stronger chanting section leader
Communion as before

In my experience, once they do it split up, they're happier (ownership of "their responsibility", vocal rest and listening to the hopefully beautiful sounds of their counterparts). I've had several requests to split it up now from older choir members.

MatthewRoth

We never had mixed octaves when I was at St Martin’s in Louisville. But the women usually did 3/5 propers by that point, leaving the men weaker by a great deal. And those were non (practicing) Catholic vocalists paid to be there so it was not ideal to have such a disparity.

I personally don’t like it at all for that reason: either have only men, and leave the women to lead the Ordinary, or rotate by week or whatever.

NihilNominis

I think there's almost nothing more beautiful than chant done well in octaves, with the color contrast between high and low voices solo for verses / certain sections, and the rich, full return of the full choir for antiphons etc.

As a young man, I fell in love with the Schola Hungarica recordings, particularly the chant selections in their Dufay Hymns album, and I have never looked back. I've attached a recording of the Oratory choir singing the Gradual / Tract for Ash Wednesday, to give you an idea of the colors I like to achieve.

At their best, my singers really do begin to approach the way my interior ear "hears" the plainsong.

SponsaChristi

We sang the propers with a mixed schola, but there were no mixed octaves. There are many women with full use of their voice and range whose timbre falls in the tenor and baritone choral ranges. They’re not all older menopausal women who once sang soprano or alto either.

It’s almost 2027. It’s time to end the stereotype that men have deep voices and women have high voices.

Liam

You go to a Shape Note sing, and at an individual sing you may find the sexes are not neatly divided into SA/TB, but mixed according to natural voice register. That's only a comment about that natural distribution of voice registers, not Catholic choir praxis.

trentonjconn

It’s almost 2027. It’s time to end the stereotype that men have deep voices and women have high voices.

It's hardly a stereotype if it's vastly true, no? It is a certifiable fact that not a single woman in my choir can sing below typical alto range, and likewise a fact that none of my men can sing in alto/soprano range. Unless I'm woefully ignorant, your experience of singing in a mixed ensemble where the women sing in the same octave as the men is unusual, to say the least.

MatthewRoth

Yeah. We had an older woman singing with men. We have alto/tenor 1 and I don’t really care who sings the part. But it’s rare for this to fundamentally reshape the choir, for whatever reason unlike in shape-note singing.

SMays · 12:27AM

We have a mixed schola and do a mix of propers together and separately at our TLM. Most commonly we sing the introit mixed with either men or women intoning and taking the first half of the verse & Gloria. Women most commonly take the gradual & alleluia with a soloist intoning, sometimes the verse will be solo. Men take the offertory & communio, with a soloist on the verses.

Practically, this works very well in rehearsal for us. Women & men can simultaneously rehearse their chants in separate rooms thanks to having both male and female co-directors.

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