OT INFREQUENTLY, composers send me emails saying something akin to the following: “I’ve written tons of choral music, but very few choirs want to perform it. Would you be willing to have your choir perform my music?” One composer from Great Britain told me that no choirs in England are interested in singing “serious” music—by which he meant his compositions.1 He desperately wanted to know whether American choirs such as mine would be willing to sing from his oeuvre, even offering me a “reward” (viz. a CD recording of him performing his compositions on the piano).
Problematic • I believe such emails are problematic. First of all, the music they send me is often “chordally composed.” That is, the composer has in mind a particular chord and [ab]uses the other voices to “fill in” each chord. The music of the masters is quite different. As I discuss at great length during my seminar, great composers employ numerous resplendent techniques: Ostinato, Counter-Exposition, Inversion, Augmentation, and so forth. Furthermore, the true masters of choral composition (Guerrero, Palestrina, Morales, Marenzio, Zoilo, Victoria, etc.) do something amazing: they make each line special. Each line has rhythmic variety, good melodic contours, lines that “stand up” on their own, and so forth.
Brief Kyrie • I recently created rehearsal videos for a wonderful KYRIE by Father Francisco Guerrero, a Catholic priest who studied with Father Cristóbal de Morales. Freely download the PDF scores and rehearsal videos by following these links:
KYRIE “Part 1 of 3” = #33188
KYRIE “Part 2 of 3” = #33918
KYRIE “Part 3 of 3” = #34761
Here’s how section 1 of 3 sounds:
Jeff Feeling Downcast • Most readers won’t follow those links. As a result, they’ll be deprived of the PDF scores. They’ll also miss out on the rehearsal videos for each individual voice, which took many hours to create. By the way, this KYRIE by Father Guerrero is from a Mass setting called Missa Puer Qui Natus Est Nobis Plus Quam Propheta Est, in honor of Saint John the Baptist.
Problematic (Cont’d) • There’s yet another reason why such emails are problematic—in my humble opinion. Composers shouldn’t spend their time begging and pleading people to perform their oeuvre. Conductors should want to perform one’s music; they should be drawn to it. Moreover, that time and energy could instead be dedicated toward the study of counterpoint or (even better) training choirs which sing for the sacred liturgy in real life. The Church desperately needs choirs. When I studied at the conservatory more than 20 years ago, a composer on the faculty was obsessed with “avant-garde” music. This elderly man didn’t realize composers like John Cage, Erik Satie, Arnold Schoenberg, Pierre Boulez, Lukas Foss, Henryk Górecki, Philip Glass, George Crumb, Elliott Carter, and Edgard Varèse were already “old news.” It never caught on; it never found an audience. Nobody listens to such music in the car! Anyhow, that composer literally went around the country paying (!) ensembles to perform his music. If you have to pay ensembles to perform your music, you’re doing something wrong as a composer.
1 For the record, I highly doubt that “no choirs in England” are interested in singing serious music!
