fbpx
Wikipedia

Choral symphony

January 01, 1970

For other uses, see Choral symphony (disambiguation).

A choral symphony is a musical composition for orchestra, choir, and sometimes solo vocalists that, in its internal workings and overall musical architecture, adheres broadly to symphonic musical form.[1] The term "choral symphony" in this context was coined by Hector Berlioz when he described his Roméo et Juliette as such in his five-paragraph introduction to that work.[2] The direct antecedent for the choral symphony is Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Beethoven's Ninth incorporates part of the ode An die Freude ("Ode to Joy"), a poem by Friedrich Schiller, with text sung by soloists and chorus in the last movement. It is the first example of a major composer's use of the human voice on the same level as instruments in a symphony.[a]

Hector Berlioz was the first to use the term "choral symphony" for a musical composition—his Roméo et Juliette.

A few 19th-century composers, notably Felix Mendelssohn and Franz Liszt, followed Beethoven in producing choral symphonic works. Notable works in the genre were produced in the 20th century by Gustav Mahler, Igor Stravinsky, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Benjamin Britten and Dmitri Shostakovich, among others. The final years of the 20th century and the opening of the 21st century have seen several new works in this genre, among them compositions by Mikis Theodorakis, Peter Maxwell Davies, Tan Dun, Philip Glass, Hans Werner Henze, Krzysztof Penderecki, William Bolcom and Robert Strassburg.[4]

The term "choral symphony" indicates the composer's intention that the work be symphonic, even with its fusion of narrative or dramatic elements that stems from the inclusion of words. To this end, the words are often treated symphonically to pursue non-narrative ends, by use of frequent repetition of important words and phrases, and the transposing, reordering or omission of passages of the set text. The text often determines the basic symphonic outline, while the orchestra's role in conveying the musical ideas is similar in importance to that of the chorus and soloists.[5] Even with a symphonic emphasis, a choral symphony is often influenced in musical form and content by an external narrative, even in parts where there is no singing.

History edit

 
Ludwig van Beethoven redefined the symphony genre by introducing words and voices in his Ninth Symphony.[6]

The symphony had established itself by the end of the 18th century as the most prestigious of instrumental genres.[7] While the genre had been developed with considerable intensity throughout that century and appeared in a wide range of occasions, it was generally used as an opening or closing work; in between would be works that included vocal and instrumental soloists.[8] Because of its lack of written text for focus, it was seen as a vehicle for entertainment rather than for social, moral or intellectual ideas.[7] As the symphony grew in size and artistic significance, thanks in part to efforts in the form by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert it also amassed greater prestige.[8] A concurrent change in attitude toward instrumental music in general also took place, and the lack of text, once seen as a handicap, became considered a virtue.[7]

In 1824, Beethoven redefined the symphony genre in his Ninth by introducing text and voice into a previously instrumental genre. His doing so sparked a debate on the future of the symphony itself.[6] Beethoven's use of words, according to Richard Wagner, had shown "the limits of purely instrumental music" and marked "the end of the symphony as a vital genre".[9] Others were not sure how to proceed—whether to emulate the Ninth by writing symphonies with choral finales, or to develop the symphony genre in a purely instrumental fashion.[6] Eventually, musicologist Mark Evan Bonds writes, the symphony was seen "as an all-embracing, cosmic drama that transcended the realm of sound alone".[10]

Some composers both emulated and expanded upon Beethoven's model. Berlioz showed in his choral symphony Roméo et Juliette a fresh approach to the epic nature of the symphony as he used voices to blend music and narrative but saved crucial moments of that narrative for the orchestra alone.[6] In doing so, Bonds writes, Berlioz illustrates for subsequent composers "new approaches for addressing the metaphysical in the realm of the symphony".[6] Mendelssohn wrote his Lobgesang as a work for chorus, soloists and orchestra. Labeling the work a "symphony-cantata", he expanded the choral finale to nine movements by including sections for vocal soloists, recitatives and sections for chorus; this made the vocal part longer than the three purely orchestral sections that preceded it.[11] Liszt wrote two choral symphonies, following in these multi-movement forms the same compositional practices and programmatic goals he had established in his symphonic poems.[10]

 
Krzysztof Penderecki wrote his Seventh Symphony to celebrate the third millennium of the city of Jerusalem.

After Liszt, Mahler took on the legacy of Beethoven in his early symphonies, in what Bonds terms "their striving for a utopian finale". Towards this end Mahler used a chorus and soloists in the finale of his Second Symphony, the "Resurrection". In his Third, he wrote a purely instrumental finale following two vocal movements, and in his Fourth a vocal finale is sung by a solo soprano.[12] After writing his Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Symphonies as purely instrumental works, Mahler returned to the vein of "festival-symphonic ceremonial" in his Eighth Symphony, which integrates text throughout the body of the work.[13] After Mahler, the choral symphony became a more common genre, taking a number of compositional turns in the process. Some composers, such as Britten, Rachmaninoff, Shostakovich and Vaughan Williams, followed symphonic form strictly.[14][15][16][17] Others, such as Havergal Brian, Alfred Schnittke and Karol Szymanowski, chose either to expand symphonic form or to use different symphonic structures altogether.[18][19][20]

Throughout the history of the choral symphony, works have been composed for special occasions. One of the earliest was Mendelssohn's Lobgesang, commissioned by the city of Leipzig in 1840 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Johannes Gutenberg's invention of movable type.[11] More than a century later, Henryk Górecki's Second Symphony, subtitled "Copernican", was commissioned in 1973 by the Kosciuszko Foundation in New York to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus.[21] In between these two works, in 1930, conductor Serge Koussevitzky asked Stravinsky to write the Symphony of Psalms for the 50th anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra[22] and, in 1946, composer Henry Barraud, then head of Radiodiffusion Française, commissioned Darius Milhaud to write his Third Symphony, subtitled "Te Deum", to commemorate the end of World War II.[23][24]

In the final years of the 20th century and the early years of the 21st, more such choral symphonies were written. Mikis Theodorakis's Symphony No. 4: Of the Chorals Odes was for the 150th anniversary of University of Athens. Krzysztof Penderecki's Seventh Symphony was for the third millennium of the city of Jerusalem. [25] Tan Dun's Symphony 1997: Heaven Earth Mankind commemorated the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong that year to the People's Republic of China.[26] Philip Glass's Fifth Symphony as one of several pieces commissioned to celebrate the beginning of the 21st century.[27]

General features edit

Like an oratorio or an opera, a choral symphony is a musical work for orchestra, choir and (often) solo voices, although a few have been written for unaccompanied voices.[1] Berlioz, who in 1858 first coined the term when describing his work Roméo et Juliette, explained the distinctive relationship he envisaged between voice and orchestra:

Even though voices are often used, it is neither a concert opera nor a cantata, but a choral symphony. If there is singing, almost from the beginning, it is to prepare the listener's mind for the dramatic scenes whose feelings and passions are to be expressed by the orchestra. It is also to introduce the choral masses gradually into the musical development, when their too sudden appearance would have damaged the compositions's unity....[2]

Unlike oratorios or operas, which are generally structured dramaturgically into arias, recitatives and choruses, a choral symphony is structured like a symphony, in movements. It may employ the traditional four-movement scheme of a fast opening movement, slow movement, scherzo and finale,[1] or as with many instrumental symphonies, it may use a different structure of movements.[28] The written text in a choral symphony shares equal standing with the music, as in an oratorio, and the chorus and soloists share equality with the instruments.[29] Over time the use of text allowed the choral symphony to evolve from an instrumental symphony with a choral finale, as in the Beethoven's Ninth, to a composition that can use voices and instruments throughout the entire composition, as in Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms or Mahler's Eighth Symphony.[29][30]

Sometimes the text can give a basic outline that correlates to the four-movement scheme of a symphony. For instance, the four-part structure of Edgar Allan Poe's The Bells, a progression from youth to marriage, maturity, and death, naturally suggested the four movements of a symphony to Sergei Rachmaninoff, which he followed in his choral symphony of the same name.[15] The text can encourage a composer to expand a choral symphony past the normal bounds of the symphonic genre, as with Berlioz for his Roméo et Juliette, yet stay within the basic structural or aesthetic intent of symphonic form.[31] It can also influence the musical content in parts where there is no singing, as in Roméo et Juliette. There, Berlioz allows the orchestra to express the majority of the drama in instrumental music and saves words for expository and narrative sections of the work.[32]

Relation of words and music edit

As in an oratorio, the written text in a choral symphony can be as important as the music, and the chorus and soloists can participate equally with the instruments in the exposition and development of musical ideas.[33] The text can also help determine whether the composer follows symphonic form strictly, as in the case of Rachmaninoff,[15] Britten[14] and Shostakovich,[16] or whether they expand symphonic form, as in the case of Berlioz,[31] Mahler[34] and Havergal Brian.[35] Sometimes the choice of text has led the composer to different symphonic structures, as with Szymanowski,[19] Schnittke[20] and, again, Havergal Brian.[18] The composer can also choose to treat the text fluidly, in a manner more like music than narrative.[36] Such was the case with Vaughan Williams, Mahler and Philip Glass.[37]

Musical treatment of text edit

 
Walt Whitman's use of free verse became appreciated by composers seeking a more fluid approach to setting text.

Vaughan Williams' program note for A Sea Symphony discusses how the text was to be treated as music. The composer writes, "The plan of the work is symphonic rather than narrative or dramatic, and this may be held to justify the frequent repetition of important words and phrases which occur in the poem. The words as well as the music are thus treated symphonically."[33] Walt Whitman's poems inspired him to write the symphony,[17] and Whitman's use of free verse became appreciated at a time where fluidity of structure was becoming more attractive than traditional, metrical settings of text. This fluidity helped facilitate the non-narrative, symphonic treatment of text that Vaughan Williams had in mind. In the third movement in particular, the text is loosely descriptive and can be "pushed about by the music", some lines being repeated, some not consecutive in the written text immediately following one another in the music, and some left out entirely.[36]

Vaughan Williams was not the only composer following a non-narrative approach to his text. Mahler took a similar, perhaps even more radical approach in his Eighth Symphony, presenting many lines of the first part, "Veni, Creator Spiritus", in what music writer and critic Michael Steinberg referred to as "an incredibly dense growth of repetitions, combinations, inversions, transpositions and conflations".[38] He does the same with Goethe's text in Part Two of the symphony, making two substantial cuts and other changes.[38]

Other works take the use of text as music still further. Vaughan Williams uses a chorus of women's voices wordlessly in his Sinfonia Antartica, based on his music for the film Scott of the Antarctic, to help set the bleakness of the overall atmosphere.[39] While a chorus is used in the second and third movements of Glass's Seventh Symphony, also known as A Toltec Symphony, the text contains no actual words; the composer states that it is instead formed "from loose syllables that add to the evocative context of the overall orchestral texture".[37]

Music and words as equals edit

 
Igor Stravinsky used chorus and orchestra in his Symphony of Psalms "on an equal footing".

Stravinsky said about the texts of his Symphony of Psalms that "it is not a symphony in which I have included Psalms to be sung. On the contrary, it is the singing of the Psalms that I am symphonizing".[40] This decision was as much musical as it was textual. Stravinsky's counterpoint required several musical voices to function simultaneously, independent melodically and rhythmically, yet interdependent harmonically. They would sound very different when heard separately, yet harmonious when heard together.[40][41] To facilitate maximum clarity in this interplay of voices, Stravinsky used "a choral and instrumental ensemble in which the two elements should be on an equal footing, neither of them outweighing the other".[42]

Mahler's intent in writing his Eighth Symphony for exceptionally large forces was a similar balance between vocal and instrumental forces. It was not simply an attempt at grandiose effect,[30] though the composer's use of such forces earned the work the subtitle "Symphony of a Thousand" from his press agent (a name still applied to the symphony).[43] Like Stravinsky, Mahler makes extensive and extended use of counterpoint, especially in the first part, "Veni Creator Spiritus". Throughout this section, according to music writer Michael Kennedy, Mahler displays considerable mastery in manipulating multiple independent melodic voices.[44] Musicologist Deryck Cooke adds that Mahler handles his huge forces "with extraordinary clarity".[45]

Vaughan Williams also insisted on a balance between words and music in A Sea Symphony, writing in his program note for the work, "It is also noticeable that the orchestra has an equal share with the chorus and soloists in carrying out the musical ideas".[33] Music critic Samuel Langford, writing about the premiere of the work for The Manchester Guardian, concurred with the composer, writing, "It is the nearest approach we have to a real choral symphony, one in which the voices are used throughout just as freely as the orchestra."[46]

In his Leaves of Grass: A Choral Symphony, Robert Strassburg composed a symphonic "musical setting" in ten movements for the poetry of Walt Whitman while balancing the contributions of a narrator, a chorus and an orchestra.[4]

Words determining symphonic form edit

 
Yevtushenko's poems about the terror under Stalin (pictured) and other Soviet abuses inspired Shostakovich to write his Thirteenth Symphony

Rachmaninoff's choral symphony The Bells reflected the four-part progression from youth to marriage, maturity, and death in Poe's poem.[15] Britten reversed the pattern for his Spring Symphony—the four sections of the symphony represent, in its composer's words, "the progress of Winter to Spring and the reawakening of the earth and life which that means.... It is in the traditional four movement shape of a symphony, but with the movements divided into shorter sections bound together by a similar mood or point of view."[14]

The gestation of Shostakovich's Thirteenth Symphony, Babi Yar, was only slightly less straightforward. He set the poem Babi Yar by Yevgeny Yevtushenko almost immediately upon reading it, initially considering it a single-movement composition.[47] Discovering three other Yevtushenko poems in the poet's collection Vzmakh ruki (A Wave of the Hand) prompted him to proceed to a full-length choral symphony, with "A Career" as the closing movement. Musicologist Francis Maes comments that Shostakovich did so by complementing Babi Yar's theme of Jewish suffering with Yevtushenko's verses about other Soviet abuses:[47] "'At the Store' is a tribute to the women who have to stand in line for hours to buy the most basic foods,... 'Fears' evokes the terror under Stalin. 'A Career' is an attack on bureaucrats and a tribute to genuine creativity".[47] Music historian Boris Schwarz adds that the poems, in the order Shostakovich places them, form a strongly dramatic opening movement, a scherzo, two slow movements and a finale.[16]

In other cases, the choice of text has led the composer to different symphonic structures. Havergal Brian allowed the form of his Fourth Symphony, subtitled "Das Siegeslied" (Psalm of Victory), to be dictated by the three-part structure of his text, Psalm 68; the setting of Verses 13–18 for soprano solo and orchestra forms a quiet interlude between two wilder, highly chromatic martial ones set for massive choral and orchestral forces.[48][49] Likewise, Szymanowski allowed the text by 13th-century Persian poet Rumi to dictate what Jim Samson calls the "single tripartite movement"[50] and "overall arch structure"[51] of his Third Symphony, subtitled "Song of the Night".

Words expanding symphonic form edit

 
Mahler first expanded the model set by Beethoven's Ninth, then abandoned it.

A composer may also respond to a text by expanding a choral symphony beyond the normal bounds of the symphonic genre. This is evident in the unusual orchestration and stage directions Berlioz prepared for his Roméo et Juliette. This piece is actually in seven movements, and calls for an intermission after the fourth movement – the "Queen Mab Scherzo" – to remove the harps from the stage and bring on the chorus of Capulets for the funeral march that follows.[31] Berlioz biographer D. Kern Holoman observed that, "as Berlioz saw it, the work is simply Beethovenian in design, with the narrative elements overlain. Its core approaches a five-movement symphony with the choral finale and, as in the [Symphonie] Fantastique, both a scherzo and a march.... The 'extra' movements are thus the introduction with its potpourri of subsections and the descriptive tomb scene [at the end of the work]."[52]

Mahler expanded the Beethovenian model for programmatic as well as symphonic reasons in his Second Symphony, the "Resurrection", the vocal fourth movement, "Urlicht", bridging the childlike faith of the third movement with the ideological tension Mahler seeks to resolve in the finale.[34] He then abandoned this pattern for his Third Symphony, as two movements for voices and orchestra follow three purely instrumental ones before the finale returns to instruments alone.[53] Like Mahler, Havergal Brian expanded the Beethovenian model, but on a much larger scale and with far larger orchestral and choral forces, in his Symphony No. 1 "The Gothic". Written between 1919 and 1927, the symphony was inspired by Goethe's Faust and Gothic cathedral architecture.[35] The Brian First is in two parts. The first consists of three instrumental movements; the second, also in three movements and over an hour in length, is a Latin setting of the Te Deum.[35]

Symphonies for unaccompanied chorus edit

A few composers have written symphonies for unaccompanied chorus, in which the choir performs both vocal and instrumental functions. Granville Bantock composed three such works—Atalanta in Calydon (1911), Vanity of Vanities (1913) and A Pageant of Human Life (1913). His Atalanta, called by musicologist Herbert Antcliffe "the most important [work of the three] alike in technical experiment and in inspiration",[54] was written for a choir of at least 200, the composer specifying "'not less than 10 voices for each part,'" a work with 20 separate vocal parts.[55] Using these forces, Bantock formed groups "of different weights and colors to get something of the varied play of tints and perspective [of an orchestra]".[56] In addition, the choir is generally divided into three sections, approximating the timbres of woodwinds, brass and strings.[57] Within these divisions, Antcliffe writes,

Almost every possible means of vocal expression is employed separately or in combination with others. To hear the different parts of the choir describing in word and tone "laughter" and "tears" respectively at the same time is to realize how little the possibilities of choral singing have as yet been grasped by the ordinary conductor and composer. Such combinations are extremely effective when properly achieved, but they are very difficult to achieve.[57]

Roy Harris wrote his Symphony for Voices in 1935 for a cappella choir split into eight parts. Harris focused on harmony, rhythm and dynamics, allowing the text by Walt Whitman to dictate the choral writing.[58] "In a real sense, the human strivings so vividly portrayed in Whitman's poetry find a musical analog to the trials to which the singers are subjected", John Profitt writes both of the music's difficulty for performers and of its highly evocative quality.[58] Malcolm Williamson wrote his Symphony for Voices between 1960 and 1962, setting texts by Australian poet James McAuley. Lewis Mitchell writes that the work is not a symphony in any true sense, but rather a four-movement work preceded by an invocation for solo contralto.[59] The text is a combination of poems celebrating the Australian wilderness and visionary Christianity, its jagged lines and rhythms matched by the music.[59] Mitchell writes, "Of all his choral works, with the possible exception of the Requiem for a Tribe Brother, the Symphony is the most Australian in feeling".[60]

Programmatic intent edit

 
Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem. Penderecki's Seventh Symphony, subtitled "Seven Gates of Jerusalem", is "pervaded by the number 'seven' at various levels".[25]

Some recent[when?] efforts have paid less attention to symphonic form and more to programmatic intent. Hans Werner Henze wrote his 1997 Ninth Symphony in seven movements, basing the structure of the symphony on the novel The Seventh Cross by Anna Seghers. The novel recounts the flight of seven fugitives from a Nazi prison camp, the seven crosses symbolizing the seven death sentences; the ordeal of the one prisoner who makes it to freedom becomes the crux of the text.[61] Penderecki's Seventh Symphony, subtitled "Seven Gates of Jerusalem" and originally conceived as an oratorio, is not only written in seven movements but, musicologist Richard Whitehouse writes, is "pervaded by the number 'seven' at various levels."[25] An extensive system of seven-note phrases binds the work together, as well as the frequent use of seven notes repeated at a single pitch.[25] Seven chords played fortissimo bring the work to a close.[25]

Philip Glass's Fifth Symphony, completed in 1999 and subtitled "Requiem, Bardo and Nirmanakaya", is written in 12 movements to fulfill its programmatic intent. Glass writes, "My plan has been for the symphony to represent a broad spectrum of many of the world's great 'wisdom' traditions",[27] synthesizing "a vocal text that begins before the world's creation, passes through earthly life and paradise, and closes with a future dedication".[27] Glass writes that he considered the millennium at the beginning of the 21st century to be a symbolic bridge between past, present and spiritual rebirth.[27]

More recently, Glass based the philosophical and musical structure for his Seventh Symphony on the Wirrarika sacred trinity.[37] Glass wrote about the work's respective movement headings and their relation to the overall structure of the symphony, "'The Corn' represents a direct link between Mother Earth and the well-being of human beings.... 'The Sacred Root' is found in the high deserts of north and central Mexico, and is understood to be the doorway to the world of the Spirit. 'The Blue Deer' is considered the holder of the Book of Knowledge. Any man or woman who aspires to be a 'Person of Knowledge' will, through arduous training and effort, have to encounter the Blue Deer...."[37]

Words changing programmatic intent edit

Addition of a text can effectively change the programmatic intent of a composition, as with the two choral symphonies of Franz Liszt. Both the Faust and Dante symphonies were conceived as purely instrumental works and only later became choral symphonies.[62] However, while Liszt authority Humphrey Searle asserts that Liszt's later inclusion of a chorus effectively sums up Faust and makes it complete,[63] another Liszt expert, Reeves Shulstad, suggests that Liszt changed the work's dramatic focus to the point of meriting a different interpretation of the work itself.[64] According to Shulstad, "Liszt's original version of 1854 ended with a last fleeting reference to Gretchen and an ... orchestral peroration in C major, based on the most majestic of themes from the opening movement. One might say that this conclusion remains within the persona of Faust and his imagination".[64] When Liszt rethought the piece three years later, he added a "Chorus mysticus", the male chorus singing the final words from Goethe's Faust.[64] The tenor soloist, accompanied by the chorus, sings the last two lines of the text. "With the addition of the 'Chorus Mysticus' text", Shulstad writes, "the Gretchen theme has been transformed and she no longer appears as a masked Faust. With this direct association to the final scene of the drama we have escaped Faust's imaginings and are hearing another voice commenting on his striving and redemption".[65]

 
From Paradiso Canto 31 by Dante Alighieri. Illustration by Gustave Doré. Dante's hearing the music of Heaven from afar.

Likewise, Liszt's inclusion of a choral finale in his Dante Symphony changed both the structural and programmatic intent of the work. Liszt's intent was to follow the structure of the Divine Comedy and compose Dante in three movements—one each for the Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso. However, Liszt's son-in-law Richard Wagner persuaded him that no earthly composer could faithfully express the joys of Paradise. Liszt dropped the third movement but added a choral element, a Magnificat, at the end of the second.[66] This action, Searle claims, effectively destroyed the work's formal balance and left the listener, like Dante, to gaze upward at the heights of Heaven and hear its music from afar.[67] Shulstad suggests that the choral finale actually helps complete the work's programmatic trajectory from struggle to paradise.[10]

Conversely, a text can also spark the birth of a choral symphony, only for that work to become a purely instrumental one when the programmatic focus of the work changes. Shostakovich originally planned his Seventh Symphony as a single-movement choral symphony much like his Second and Third Symphonies. Shostakovich reportedly intended to set a text for the Seventh from the Ninth Psalm, on the theme of vengeance for the shedding of innocent blood.[68] In doing this he was influenced by Stravinsky; he had been deeply impressed with the latter's Symphony of Psalms, which he wanted to emulate in this work.[69] While the Ninth Psalm's theme conveyed Shostakovich's outrage over Stalin's oppression,[70] a public performance of a work with such a text would have been impossible before the German invasion. Hitler's aggression made the performance of such a work feasible, at least in theory; the reference to "blood" could then be associated at least officially with Hitler.[70] With Stalin appealing to the Soviets' patriotic and religious sentiments, the authorities were no longer suppressing Orthodox themes or images.[71] Nevertheless, Shostakovich eventually realized that the work encompassed far more than this symbology.[72] He expanded the symphony to the traditional four movements and made it purely instrumental.[72]

Supplanting text wordlessly edit

While Berlioz allowed the programmatic aspects of his text to shape the symphonic form of Roméo and to guide its content, he also showed how an orchestra could supplant such a text wordlessly to further illustrate it.[32] He wrote in his preface to Roméo:

 
Berlioz allowed text to dictate symphonic form in Roméo but allowed the music to supplant the text wordlessly.

If, in the famous garden and cemetery scenes the dialogue of the two lovers, Juliet's asides, and Romeo's passionate outbursts are not sung, if the duets of love and despair are given to the orchestra, the reasons are numerous and easy to comprehend. First, and this alone would be sufficient, it is a symphony and not an opera. Second, since duets of this nature have been handled vocally a thousand times by the greatest masters, it was wise as well as unusual to attempt another means of expression. It is also because the very sublimity of this love made its depiction so dangerous for the musician that he had to give his imagination a latitude that the positive sense of the sung words would not have given him, resorting instead to instrumental language, which is richer, more varied, less precise, and by its very indefiniteness incomparably more powerful in such a case.[2]

As a manifesto, this paragraph became significant for the amalgamation of symphonic and dramatic elements in the same musical composition.[73] Musicologist Hugh Macdonald writes that as Berlioz kept the idea of symphonic construction closely in mind, he allowed the orchestra to express the majority of the drama in instrumental music and set expository and narrative sections in words.[32] Fellow musicologist Nicholas Temperley suggests that, in Roméo, Berlioz created a model for how a dramatic text could guide the structure of a choral symphony without circumventing that work from being recognizably a symphony.[74] In this sense, musicologist Mark Evans Bonds writes, the symphonies of Liszt and Mahler owe a debt of influence to Berlioz.[6]

More recently, Alfred Schnittke allowed the programmatic aspects of his texts to dictate the course of both his choral symphonies even when no words were being sung. Schnittke's six-movement Second Symphony, following the Ordinary of the Mass of the Roman Catholic Church,[75] works programmatically on two levels simultaneously. While soloists and chorus briefly perform the mass, set to chorales taken from the Gradual,[76] the orchestra provides an extended running commentary that can continue much longer than the section of the mass being performed. Sometimes the commentary follows a particular chorale but more often is freer and wider ranging in style.[76] Despite the resulting stylistic disparity, biographer Alexander Ivashkin comments, "musically almost all these sections blend the choral [sic] tune and subsequent extensive orchestral 'commentary.'"[76] The work becomes what Schnittke called an "Invisible Mass",[77] and Alexander Ivashkin termed "a symphony against a chorale backdrop".[76]

The program in Schnittke's Fourth Symphony, reflecting the composer's own religious dilemma at the time it was written,[78] is more complex in execution, with the majority of it expressed wordlessly. In the 22 variations that make up the symphony's single movement,[b] Schnittke enacts the 15 traditional Mysteries of the Rosary, which highlight important moments in the life of Christ.[80][81] As he did in the Second Symphony, Schnittke simultaneously gives a detailed musical commentary on what is being portrayed.[80] Schnittke does this while using church music from the Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Orthodox faiths, the orchestral texture becoming extremely dense from the many musical strands progressing at the same time.[75][78] A tenor and a countertenor also sing wordlessly at two points in the symphony. The composition saves words for a finale that uses all four types of church music contrapuntally[82] as a four-part choir sings the Ave Maria.[78] The choir can choose whether to sing the Ave Maria in Russian or Latin.[78] The programmatic intent of using these different types of music, Ivashkin writes, is an insistence by the composer "on the idea ... of the unity of humanity, a synthesis and harmony among various manifestations of belief".[80]

See also edit

References edit

Notes edit

  1. ^ Peter von Winter's Schlacht-Sinfonie also uses a concluding chorus. Written in 1814, it predates Beethoven's Ninth by a decade. However, as an occasional work written in one movement, the Schlacht-Sinfonie "stands outside the generic tradition of the symphony".[3]
  2. ^ The actual number of variations in the Schnittke Fourth Symphony is "a subtle non-synchronicity" of the piece, considering the "3 by 5 scheme" of the Rosary these variations are reportedly based on.[79]

Citations edit

  1. ^ a b c Kennedy (1985), p. 144
  2. ^ a b c "Avant-Propos de l'auteur", Reiter-Biedermann's vocal score (Winterthur, 1858), p. 1. As quoted in Holoman (1989), p. 262
  3. ^ Bonds (2001), 24:836.
  4. ^ a b "Robert Strassburg" by Neil W. Levin, Milken Archive of Jewish Music
  5. ^ Kennedy (1964), p. 444
  6. ^ a b c d e f Bonds (2001), 24:837
  7. ^ a b c Bonds (2001), 24:835
  8. ^ a b Larue & Wolf (2001), 24:812
  9. ^ As cited in Bonds (2001), 24:837
  10. ^ a b c Bonds (2001), 24:838
  11. ^ a b Todd (2001), 16:403
  12. ^ Bonds (2001), 24:839.
  13. ^ Franklin (2001), 15:622.
  14. ^ a b c Britten, Benjamin, "A Note on the Spring Symphony", Music Survey, Spring 1950. As quoted in White (1970), p. 62
  15. ^ a b c d Steinberg (2005), pp. 241–242
  16. ^ a b c Schwarz (1980), 17:270
  17. ^ a b Cox (1972), 2:115
  18. ^ a b MacDonald (n.d.), p. 3
  19. ^ a b Samson (1990), pp. 122, 126
  20. ^ a b Weitzman (1996), p. 5
  21. ^ Kosz (2001), p. 2.
  22. ^ Steinberg 2005, p. 265.
  23. ^ Palmer (1980), 12:306.
  24. ^ Penguin, 774.
  25. ^ a b c d e Whitehouse (2006), p. 2
  26. ^ Anon. (n.d.), p. 4.
  27. ^ a b c d Glass (1999)
  28. ^ Bonds (2001), 24:833.
  29. ^ a b Steinberg (1995), p. 268; Kennedy (1964), p. 444
  30. ^ a b Kennedy (1990), p. 151
  31. ^ a b c Holoman (1989), pp. 262–263
  32. ^ a b c Macdonald (1980), 2:596
  33. ^ a b c Kennedy (1964), p. 444
  34. ^ a b Franklin (2001), 15:618
  35. ^ a b c MacDonald (2001), 4:341
  36. ^ a b Ottaway (1973), p. 17
  37. ^ a b c d Freed (2005)
  38. ^ a b Steinberg (1995), p. 335
  39. ^ Ottaway (1973), pp. 50, 53.
  40. ^ a b White (1979), p. 321
  41. ^ Sachs & Dahlhaus 2001, 6:564–569.
  42. ^ Stravinsky, Chronicles, as cited in White (1979), p. 321
  43. ^ Kennedy (1990), p. 100.
  44. ^ Kennedy (1990), p. 152.
  45. ^ Cooke (1980), p. 93.
  46. ^ Cited in Kennedy (1964), p. 99
  47. ^ a b c Maes (2002), p. 366
  48. ^ Truscott (1972), 2:143–144.
  49. ^ MacDonald (n.d.), p. 3.
  50. ^ Samson (1990), p. 122.
  51. ^ Samson (1990), p. 126.
  52. ^ Holoman (1989), p. 263.
  53. ^ Mitchell (1980), p. 515.
  54. ^ Antcliffe (1918), p. 337.
  55. ^ Cited in McVeagh (1996), p. 5
  56. ^ Ernest Newman, cited in McVeagh (1996), p. 6
  57. ^ a b Antcliffe (1918), p. 338
  58. ^ a b Profitt (1995)
  59. ^ a b Mitchell (2006), p. 2
  60. ^ Mitchell (2006), pp. 2–3.
  61. ^ Schlüren & Treichel (1998), p. 13.
  62. ^ Shulstad (2005), pp. 217, 219.
  63. ^ Searle 1972, 1:269.
  64. ^ a b c Shulstad (2005), p. 217
  65. ^ Shulstad (2005), p. 219.
  66. ^ Shulstad (2005), p. 220.
  67. ^ Searle (1980), 11:45.
  68. ^ Volkov (1979), p. 184; Arnshtam interview with Sofiya Khentova in Khentova, In Shostakovich's World (Moscow, 1996), 234, as quoted in Wilson (2006), pp. 171–172
  69. ^ Volkov (2004), p. 175
  70. ^ a b Volkov1995, p. 427
  71. ^ Volkov (1995), pp. 427–428.
  72. ^ a b Steinberg (1995), p. 557
  73. ^ Holoman (1989), p. 261.
  74. ^ Temperley (1980), 18:460.
  75. ^ a b Moody (2001), 22:566
  76. ^ a b c d Ivashkin (1997), p. 5
  77. ^ As cited in Ivashkin (1997), p. 5
  78. ^ a b c d Ivashkin (1996), p. 161
  79. ^ Weitzman (1996), p. 5.
  80. ^ a b c Ivashkin (1996), p. 165
  81. ^ Weitzman (1996), p. 6.
  82. ^ Weitzman (1996), p. 7.

Sources edit

Further reading edit

January 01, 1970
choral, symphony, other, uses, disambiguation, choral, symphony, musical, composition, orchestra, choir, sometimes, solo, vocalists, that, internal, workings, overall, musical, architecture, adheres, broadly, symphonic, musical, form, term, choral, symphony, t. For other uses see Choral symphony disambiguation A choral symphony is a musical composition for orchestra choir and sometimes solo vocalists that in its internal workings and overall musical architecture adheres broadly to symphonic musical form 1 The term choral symphony in this context was coined by Hector Berlioz when he described his Romeo et Juliette as such in his five paragraph introduction to that work 2 The direct antecedent for the choral symphony is Ludwig van Beethoven s Ninth Symphony Beethoven s Ninth incorporates part of the ode An die Freude Ode to Joy a poem by Friedrich Schiller with text sung by soloists and chorus in the last movement It is the first example of a major composer s use of the human voice on the same level as instruments in a symphony a Hector Berlioz was the first to use the term choral symphony for a musical composition his Romeo et Juliette A few 19th century composers notably Felix Mendelssohn and Franz Liszt followed Beethoven in producing choral symphonic works Notable works in the genre were produced in the 20th century by Gustav Mahler Igor Stravinsky Ralph Vaughan Williams Benjamin Britten and Dmitri Shostakovich among others The final years of the 20th century and the opening of the 21st century have seen several new works in this genre among them compositions by Mikis Theodorakis Peter Maxwell Davies Tan Dun Philip Glass Hans Werner Henze Krzysztof Penderecki William Bolcom and Robert Strassburg 4 The term choral symphony indicates the composer s intention that the work be symphonic even with its fusion of narrative or dramatic elements that stems from the inclusion of words To this end the words are often treated symphonically to pursue non narrative ends by use of frequent repetition of important words and phrases and the transposing reordering or omission of passages of the set text The text often determines the basic symphonic outline while the orchestra s role in conveying the musical ideas is similar in importance to that of the chorus and soloists 5 Even with a symphonic emphasis a choral symphony is often influenced in musical form and content by an external narrative even in parts where there is no singing Contents 1 History 2 General features 3 Relation of words and music 3 1 Musical treatment of text 3 2 Music and words as equals 3 3 Words determining symphonic form 3 4 Words expanding symphonic form 4 Symphonies for unaccompanied chorus 5 Programmatic intent 5 1 Words changing programmatic intent 5 2 Supplanting text wordlessly 6 See also 7 References 7 1 Notes 7 2 Citations 7 3 Sources 8 Further readingHistory edit nbsp Ludwig van Beethoven redefined the symphony genre by introducing words and voices in his Ninth Symphony 6 The symphony had established itself by the end of the 18th century as the most prestigious of instrumental genres 7 While the genre had been developed with considerable intensity throughout that century and appeared in a wide range of occasions it was generally used as an opening or closing work in between would be works that included vocal and instrumental soloists 8 Because of its lack of written text for focus it was seen as a vehicle for entertainment rather than for social moral or intellectual ideas 7 As the symphony grew in size and artistic significance thanks in part to efforts in the form by Haydn Mozart Beethoven and Schubert it also amassed greater prestige 8 A concurrent change in attitude toward instrumental music in general also took place and the lack of text once seen as a handicap became considered a virtue 7 In 1824 Beethoven redefined the symphony genre in his Ninth by introducing text and voice into a previously instrumental genre His doing so sparked a debate on the future of the symphony itself 6 Beethoven s use of words according to Richard Wagner had shown the limits of purely instrumental music and marked the end of the symphony as a vital genre 9 Others were not sure how to proceed whether to emulate the Ninth by writing symphonies with choral finales or to develop the symphony genre in a purely instrumental fashion 6 Eventually musicologist Mark Evan Bonds writes the symphony was seen as an all embracing cosmic drama that transcended the realm of sound alone 10 Some composers both emulated and expanded upon Beethoven s model Berlioz showed in his choral symphony Romeo et Juliette a fresh approach to the epic nature of the symphony as he used voices to blend music and narrative but saved crucial moments of that narrative for the orchestra alone 6 In doing so Bonds writes Berlioz illustrates for subsequent composers new approaches for addressing the metaphysical in the realm of the symphony 6 Mendelssohn wrote his Lobgesang as a work for chorus soloists and orchestra Labeling the work a symphony cantata he expanded the choral finale to nine movements by including sections for vocal soloists recitatives and sections for chorus this made the vocal part longer than the three purely orchestral sections that preceded it 11 Liszt wrote two choral symphonies following in these multi movement forms the same compositional practices and programmatic goals he had established in his symphonic poems 10 nbsp Krzysztof Penderecki wrote his Seventh Symphony to celebrate the third millennium of the city of Jerusalem After Liszt Mahler took on the legacy of Beethoven in his early symphonies in what Bonds terms their striving for a utopian finale Towards this end Mahler used a chorus and soloists in the finale of his Second Symphony the Resurrection In his Third he wrote a purely instrumental finale following two vocal movements and in his Fourth a vocal finale is sung by a solo soprano 12 After writing his Fifth Sixth and Seventh Symphonies as purely instrumental works Mahler returned to the vein of festival symphonic ceremonial in his Eighth Symphony which integrates text throughout the body of the work 13 After Mahler the choral symphony became a more common genre taking a number of compositional turns in the process Some composers such as Britten Rachmaninoff Shostakovich and Vaughan Williams followed symphonic form strictly 14 15 16 17 Others such as Havergal Brian Alfred Schnittke and Karol Szymanowski chose either to expand symphonic form or to use different symphonic structures altogether 18 19 20 Throughout the history of the choral symphony works have been composed for special occasions One of the earliest was Mendelssohn s Lobgesang commissioned by the city of Leipzig in 1840 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Johannes Gutenberg s invention of movable type 11 More than a century later Henryk Gorecki s Second Symphony subtitled Copernican was commissioned in 1973 by the Kosciuszko Foundation in New York to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus 21 In between these two works in 1930 conductor Serge Koussevitzky asked Stravinsky to write the Symphony of Psalms for the 50th anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra 22 and in 1946 composer Henry Barraud then head of Radiodiffusion Francaise commissioned Darius Milhaud to write his Third Symphony subtitled Te Deum to commemorate the end of World War II 23 24 In the final years of the 20th century and the early years of the 21st more such choral symphonies were written Mikis Theodorakis s Symphony No 4 Of the Chorals Odes was for the 150th anniversary of University of Athens Krzysztof Penderecki s Seventh Symphony was for the third millennium of the city of Jerusalem 25 Tan Dun s Symphony 1997 Heaven Earth Mankind commemorated the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong that year to the People s Republic of China 26 Philip Glass s Fifth Symphony as one of several pieces commissioned to celebrate the beginning of the 21st century 27 General features editLike an oratorio or an opera a choral symphony is a musical work for orchestra choir and often solo voices although a few have been written for unaccompanied voices 1 Berlioz who in 1858 first coined the term when describing his work Romeo et Juliette explained the distinctive relationship he envisaged between voice and orchestra Even though voices are often used it is neither a concert opera nor a cantata but a choral symphony If there is singing almost from the beginning it is to prepare the listener s mind for the dramatic scenes whose feelings and passions are to be expressed by the orchestra It is also to introduce the choral masses gradually into the musical development when their too sudden appearance would have damaged the compositions s unity 2 Unlike oratorios or operas which are generally structured dramaturgically into arias recitatives and choruses a choral symphony is structured like a symphony in movements It may employ the traditional four movement scheme of a fast opening movement slow movement scherzo and finale 1 or as with many instrumental symphonies it may use a different structure of movements 28 The written text in a choral symphony shares equal standing with the music as in an oratorio and the chorus and soloists share equality with the instruments 29 Over time the use of text allowed the choral symphony to evolve from an instrumental symphony with a choral finale as in the Beethoven s Ninth to a composition that can use voices and instruments throughout the entire composition as in Stravinsky s Symphony of Psalms or Mahler s Eighth Symphony 29 30 Sometimes the text can give a basic outline that correlates to the four movement scheme of a symphony For instance the four part structure of Edgar Allan Poe s The Bells a progression from youth to marriage maturity and death naturally suggested the four movements of a symphony to Sergei Rachmaninoff which he followed in his choral symphony of the same name 15 The text can encourage a composer to expand a choral symphony past the normal bounds of the symphonic genre as with Berlioz for his Romeo et Juliette yet stay within the basic structural or aesthetic intent of symphonic form 31 It can also influence the musical content in parts where there is no singing as in Romeo et Juliette There Berlioz allows the orchestra to express the majority of the drama in instrumental music and saves words for expository and narrative sections of the work 32 Relation of words and music editAs in an oratorio the written text in a choral symphony can be as important as the music and the chorus and soloists can participate equally with the instruments in the exposition and development of musical ideas 33 The text can also help determine whether the composer follows symphonic form strictly as in the case of Rachmaninoff 15 Britten 14 and Shostakovich 16 or whether they expand symphonic form as in the case of Berlioz 31 Mahler 34 and Havergal Brian 35 Sometimes the choice of text has led the composer to different symphonic structures as with Szymanowski 19 Schnittke 20 and again Havergal Brian 18 The composer can also choose to treat the text fluidly in a manner more like music than narrative 36 Such was the case with Vaughan Williams Mahler and Philip Glass 37 Musical treatment of text edit nbsp Walt Whitman s use of free verse became appreciated by composers seeking a more fluid approach to setting text Vaughan Williams program note for A Sea Symphony discusses how the text was to be treated as music The composer writes The plan of the work is symphonic rather than narrative or dramatic and this may be held to justify the frequent repetition of important words and phrases which occur in the poem The words as well as the music are thus treated symphonically 33 Walt Whitman s poems inspired him to write the symphony 17 and Whitman s use of free verse became appreciated at a time where fluidity of structure was becoming more attractive than traditional metrical settings of text This fluidity helped facilitate the non narrative symphonic treatment of text that Vaughan Williams had in mind In the third movement in particular the text is loosely descriptive and can be pushed about by the music some lines being repeated some not consecutive in the written text immediately following one another in the music and some left out entirely 36 Vaughan Williams was not the only composer following a non narrative approach to his text Mahler took a similar perhaps even more radical approach in his Eighth Symphony presenting many lines of the first part Veni Creator Spiritus in what music writer and critic Michael Steinberg referred to as an incredibly dense growth of repetitions combinations inversions transpositions and conflations 38 He does the same with Goethe s text in Part Two of the symphony making two substantial cuts and other changes 38 Other works take the use of text as music still further Vaughan Williams uses a chorus of women s voices wordlessly in his Sinfonia Antartica based on his music for the film Scott of the Antarctic to help set the bleakness of the overall atmosphere 39 While a chorus is used in the second and third movements of Glass s Seventh Symphony also known as A Toltec Symphony the text contains no actual words the composer states that it is instead formed from loose syllables that add to the evocative context of the overall orchestral texture 37 Music and words as equals edit nbsp Igor Stravinsky used chorus and orchestra in his Symphony of Psalms on an equal footing Stravinsky said about the texts of his Symphony of Psalms that it is not a symphony in which I have included Psalms to be sung On the contrary it is the singing of the Psalms that I am symphonizing 40 This decision was as much musical as it was textual Stravinsky s counterpoint required several musical voices to function simultaneously independent melodically and rhythmically yet interdependent harmonically They would sound very different when heard separately yet harmonious when heard together 40 41 To facilitate maximum clarity in this interplay of voices Stravinsky used a choral and instrumental ensemble in which the two elements should be on an equal footing neither of them outweighing the other 42 Mahler s intent in writing his Eighth Symphony for exceptionally large forces was a similar balance between vocal and instrumental forces It was not simply an attempt at grandiose effect 30 though the composer s use of such forces earned the work the subtitle Symphony of a Thousand from his press agent a name still applied to the symphony 43 Like Stravinsky Mahler makes extensive and extended use of counterpoint especially in the first part Veni Creator Spiritus Throughout this section according to music writer Michael Kennedy Mahler displays considerable mastery in manipulating multiple independent melodic voices 44 Musicologist Deryck Cooke adds that Mahler handles his huge forces with extraordinary clarity 45 Vaughan Williams also insisted on a balance between words and music in A Sea Symphony writing in his program note for the work It is also noticeable that the orchestra has an equal share with the chorus and soloists in carrying out the musical ideas 33 Music critic Samuel Langford writing about the premiere of the work for The Manchester Guardian concurred with the composer writing It is the nearest approach we have to a real choral symphony one in which the voices are used throughout just as freely as the orchestra 46 In his Leaves of Grass A Choral Symphony Robert Strassburg composed a symphonic musical setting in ten movements for the poetry of Walt Whitman while balancing the contributions of a narrator a chorus and an orchestra 4 Words determining symphonic form edit nbsp Yevtushenko s poems about the terror under Stalin pictured and other Soviet abuses inspired Shostakovich to write his Thirteenth Symphony Rachmaninoff s choral symphony The Bells reflected the four part progression from youth to marriage maturity and death in Poe s poem 15 Britten reversed the pattern for his Spring Symphony the four sections of the symphony represent in its composer s words the progress of Winter to Spring and the reawakening of the earth and life which that means It is in the traditional four movement shape of a symphony but with the movements divided into shorter sections bound together by a similar mood or point of view 14 The gestation of Shostakovich s Thirteenth Symphony Babi Yar was only slightly less straightforward He set the poem Babi Yar by Yevgeny Yevtushenko almost immediately upon reading it initially considering it a single movement composition 47 Discovering three other Yevtushenko poems in the poet s collection Vzmakh ruki A Wave of the Hand prompted him to proceed to a full length choral symphony with A Career as the closing movement Musicologist Francis Maes comments that Shostakovich did so by complementing Babi Yar s theme of Jewish suffering with Yevtushenko s verses about other Soviet abuses 47 At the Store is a tribute to the women who have to stand in line for hours to buy the most basic foods Fears evokes the terror under Stalin A Career is an attack on bureaucrats and a tribute to genuine creativity 47 Music historian Boris Schwarz adds that the poems in the order Shostakovich places them form a strongly dramatic opening movement a scherzo two slow movements and a finale 16 In other cases the choice of text has led the composer to different symphonic structures Havergal Brian allowed the form of his Fourth Symphony subtitled Das Siegeslied Psalm of Victory to be dictated by the three part structure of his text Psalm 68 the setting of Verses 13 18 for soprano solo and orchestra forms a quiet interlude between two wilder highly chromatic martial ones set for massive choral and orchestral forces 48 49 Likewise Szymanowski allowed the text by 13th century Persian poet Rumi to dictate what Jim Samson calls the single tripartite movement 50 and overall arch structure 51 of his Third Symphony subtitled Song of the Night Words expanding symphonic form edit nbsp Mahler first expanded the model set by Beethoven s Ninth then abandoned it A composer may also respond to a text by expanding a choral symphony beyond the normal bounds of the symphonic genre This is evident in the unusual orchestration and stage directions Berlioz prepared for his Romeo et Juliette This piece is actually in seven movements and calls for an intermission after the fourth movement the Queen Mab Scherzo to remove the harps from the stage and bring on the chorus of Capulets for the funeral march that follows 31 Berlioz biographer D Kern Holoman observed that as Berlioz saw it the work is simply Beethovenian in design with the narrative elements overlain Its core approaches a five movement symphony with the choral finale and as in the Symphonie Fantastique both a scherzo and a march The extra movements are thus the introduction with its potpourri of subsections and the descriptive tomb scene at the end of the work 52 Mahler expanded the Beethovenian model for programmatic as well as symphonic reasons in his Second Symphony the Resurrection the vocal fourth movement Urlicht bridging the childlike faith of the third movement with the ideological tension Mahler seeks to resolve in the finale 34 He then abandoned this pattern for his Third Symphony as two movements for voices and orchestra follow three purely instrumental ones before the finale returns to instruments alone 53 Like Mahler Havergal Brian expanded the Beethovenian model but on a much larger scale and with far larger orchestral and choral forces in his Symphony No 1 The Gothic Written between 1919 and 1927 the symphony was inspired by Goethe s Faust and Gothic cathedral architecture 35 The Brian First is in two parts The first consists of three instrumental movements the second also in three movements and over an hour in length is a Latin setting of the Te Deum 35 Symphonies for unaccompanied chorus editA few composers have written symphonies for unaccompanied chorus in which the choir performs both vocal and instrumental functions Granville Bantock composed three such works Atalanta in Calydon 1911 Vanity of Vanities 1913 and A Pageant of Human Life 1913 His Atalanta called by musicologist Herbert Antcliffe the most important work of the three alike in technical experiment and in inspiration 54 was written for a choir of at least 200 the composer specifying not less than 10 voices for each part a work with 20 separate vocal parts 55 Using these forces Bantock formed groups of different weights and colors to get something of the varied play of tints and perspective of an orchestra 56 In addition the choir is generally divided into three sections approximating the timbres of woodwinds brass and strings 57 Within these divisions Antcliffe writes Almost every possible means of vocal expression is employed separately or in combination with others To hear the different parts of the choir describing in word and tone laughter and tears respectively at the same time is to realize how little the possibilities of choral singing have as yet been grasped by the ordinary conductor and composer Such combinations are extremely effective when properly achieved but they are very difficult to achieve 57 Roy Harris wrote his Symphony for Voices in 1935 for a cappella choir split into eight parts Harris focused on harmony rhythm and dynamics allowing the text by Walt Whitman to dictate the choral writing 58 In a real sense the human strivings so vividly portrayed in Whitman s poetry find a musical analog to the trials to which the singers are subjected John Profitt writes both of the music s difficulty for performers and of its highly evocative quality 58 Malcolm Williamson wrote his Symphony for Voices between 1960 and 1962 setting texts by Australian poet James McAuley Lewis Mitchell writes that the work is not a symphony in any true sense but rather a four movement work preceded by an invocation for solo contralto 59 The text is a combination of poems celebrating the Australian wilderness and visionary Christianity its jagged lines and rhythms matched by the music 59 Mitchell writes Of all his choral works with the possible exception of the Requiem for a Tribe Brother the Symphony is the most Australian in feeling 60 Programmatic intent edit nbsp Jaffa Gate in Jerusalem Penderecki s Seventh Symphony subtitled Seven Gates of Jerusalem is pervaded by the number seven at various levels 25 Some recent when efforts have paid less attention to symphonic form and more to programmatic intent Hans Werner Henze wrote his 1997 Ninth Symphony in seven movements basing the structure of the symphony on the novel The Seventh Cross by Anna Seghers The novel recounts the flight of seven fugitives from a Nazi prison camp the seven crosses symbolizing the seven death sentences the ordeal of the one prisoner who makes it to freedom becomes the crux of the text 61 Penderecki s Seventh Symphony subtitled Seven Gates of Jerusalem and originally conceived as an oratorio is not only written in seven movements but musicologist Richard Whitehouse writes is pervaded by the number seven at various levels 25 An extensive system of seven note phrases binds the work together as well as the frequent use of seven notes repeated at a single pitch 25 Seven chords played fortissimo bring the work to a close 25 Philip Glass s Fifth Symphony completed in 1999 and subtitled Requiem Bardo and Nirmanakaya is written in 12 movements to fulfill its programmatic intent Glass writes My plan has been for the symphony to represent a broad spectrum of many of the world s great wisdom traditions 27 synthesizing a vocal text that begins before the world s creation passes through earthly life and paradise and closes with a future dedication 27 Glass writes that he considered the millennium at the beginning of the 21st century to be a symbolic bridge between past present and spiritual rebirth 27 More recently Glass based the philosophical and musical structure for his Seventh Symphony on the Wirrarika sacred trinity 37 Glass wrote about the work s respective movement headings and their relation to the overall structure of the symphony The Corn represents a direct link between Mother Earth and the well being of human beings The Sacred Root is found in the high deserts of north and central Mexico and is understood to be the doorway to the world of the Spirit The Blue Deer is considered the holder of the Book of Knowledge Any man or woman who aspires to be a Person of Knowledge will through arduous training and effort have to encounter the Blue Deer 37 Words changing programmatic intent edit Addition of a text can effectively change the programmatic intent of a composition as with the two choral symphonies of Franz Liszt Both the Faust and Dante symphonies were conceived as purely instrumental works and only later became choral symphonies 62 However while Liszt authority Humphrey Searle asserts that Liszt s later inclusion of a chorus effectively sums up Faust and makes it complete 63 another Liszt expert Reeves Shulstad suggests that Liszt changed the work s dramatic focus to the point of meriting a different interpretation of the work itself 64 According to Shulstad Liszt s original version of 1854 ended with a last fleeting reference to Gretchen and an orchestral peroration in C major based on the most majestic of themes from the opening movement One might say that this conclusion remains within the persona of Faust and his imagination 64 When Liszt rethought the piece three years later he added a Chorus mysticus the male chorus singing the final words from Goethe s Faust 64 The tenor soloist accompanied by the chorus sings the last two lines of the text With the addition of the Chorus Mysticus text Shulstad writes the Gretchen theme has been transformed and she no longer appears as a masked Faust With this direct association to the final scene of the drama we have escaped Faust s imaginings and are hearing another voice commenting on his striving and redemption 65 nbsp From Paradiso Canto 31 by Dante Alighieri Illustration by Gustave Dore Dante s hearing the music of Heaven from afar Likewise Liszt s inclusion of a choral finale in his Dante Symphony changed both the structural and programmatic intent of the work Liszt s intent was to follow the structure of the Divine Comedy and compose Dante in three movements one each for the Inferno Purgatorio and Paradiso However Liszt s son in law Richard Wagner persuaded him that no earthly composer could faithfully express the joys of Paradise Liszt dropped the third movement but added a choral element a Magnificat at the end of the second 66 This action Searle claims effectively destroyed the work s formal balance and left the listener like Dante to gaze upward at the heights of Heaven and hear its music from afar 67 Shulstad suggests that the choral finale actually helps complete the work s programmatic trajectory from struggle to paradise 10 Conversely a text can also spark the birth of a choral symphony only for that work to become a purely instrumental one when the programmatic focus of the work changes Shostakovich originally planned his Seventh Symphony as a single movement choral symphony much like his Second and Third Symphonies Shostakovich reportedly intended to set a text for the Seventh from the Ninth Psalm on the theme of vengeance for the shedding of innocent blood 68 In doing this he was influenced by Stravinsky he had been deeply impressed with the latter s Symphony of Psalms which he wanted to emulate in this work 69 While the Ninth Psalm s theme conveyed Shostakovich s outrage over Stalin s oppression 70 a public performance of a work with such a text would have been impossible before the German invasion Hitler s aggression made the performance of such a work feasible at least in theory the reference to blood could then be associated at least officially with Hitler 70 With Stalin appealing to the Soviets patriotic and religious sentiments the authorities were no longer suppressing Orthodox themes or images 71 Nevertheless Shostakovich eventually realized that the work encompassed far more than this symbology 72 He expanded the symphony to the traditional four movements and made it purely instrumental 72 Supplanting text wordlessly edit While Berlioz allowed the programmatic aspects of his text to shape the symphonic form of Romeo and to guide its content he also showed how an orchestra could supplant such a text wordlessly to further illustrate it 32 He wrote in his preface to Romeo nbsp Berlioz allowed text to dictate symphonic form in Romeo but allowed the music to supplant the text wordlessly If in the famous garden and cemetery scenes the dialogue of the two lovers Juliet s asides and Romeo s passionate outbursts are not sung if the duets of love and despair are given to the orchestra the reasons are numerous and easy to comprehend First and this alone would be sufficient it is a symphony and not an opera Second since duets of this nature have been handled vocally a thousand times by the greatest masters it was wise as well as unusual to attempt another means of expression It is also because the very sublimity of this love made its depiction so dangerous for the musician that he had to give his imagination a latitude that the positive sense of the sung words would not have given him resorting instead to instrumental language which is richer more varied less precise and by its very indefiniteness incomparably more powerful in such a case 2 As a manifesto this paragraph became significant for the amalgamation of symphonic and dramatic elements in the same musical composition 73 Musicologist Hugh Macdonald writes that as Berlioz kept the idea of symphonic construction closely in mind he allowed the orchestra to express the majority of the drama in instrumental music and set expository and narrative sections in words 32 Fellow musicologist Nicholas Temperley suggests that in Romeo Berlioz created a model for how a dramatic text could guide the structure of a choral symphony without circumventing that work from being recognizably a symphony 74 In this sense musicologist Mark Evans Bonds writes the symphonies of Liszt and Mahler owe a debt of influence to Berlioz 6 More recently Alfred Schnittke allowed the programmatic aspects of his texts to dictate the course of both his choral symphonies even when no words were being sung Schnittke s six movement Second Symphony following the Ordinary of the Mass of the Roman Catholic Church 75 works programmatically on two levels simultaneously While soloists and chorus briefly perform the mass set to chorales taken from the Gradual 76 the orchestra provides an extended running commentary that can continue much longer than the section of the mass being performed Sometimes the commentary follows a particular chorale but more often is freer and wider ranging in style 76 Despite the resulting stylistic disparity biographer Alexander Ivashkin comments musically almost all these sections blend the choral sic tune and subsequent extensive orchestral commentary 76 The work becomes what Schnittke called an Invisible Mass 77 and Alexander Ivashkin termed a symphony against a chorale backdrop 76 The program in Schnittke s Fourth Symphony reflecting the composer s own religious dilemma at the time it was written 78 is more complex in execution with the majority of it expressed wordlessly In the 22 variations that make up the symphony s single movement b Schnittke enacts the 15 traditional Mysteries of the Rosary which highlight important moments in the life of Christ 80 81 As he did in the Second Symphony Schnittke simultaneously gives a detailed musical commentary on what is being portrayed 80 Schnittke does this while using church music from the Catholic Protestant Jewish and Orthodox faiths the orchestral texture becoming extremely dense from the many musical strands progressing at the same time 75 78 A tenor and a countertenor also sing wordlessly at two points in the symphony The composition saves words for a finale that uses all four types of church music contrapuntally 82 as a four part choir sings the Ave Maria 78 The choir can choose whether to sing the Ave Maria in Russian or Latin 78 The programmatic intent of using these different types of music Ivashkin writes is an insistence by the composer on the idea of the unity of humanity a synthesis and harmony among various manifestations of belief 80 See also edit nbsp Classical music portal List of choral symphoniesReferences editNotes edit Peter von Winter s Schlacht Sinfonie also uses a concluding chorus Written in 1814 it predates Beethoven s Ninth by a decade However as an occasional work written in one movement the Schlacht Sinfonie stands outside the generic tradition of the symphony 3 The actual number of variations in the Schnittke Fourth Symphony is a subtle non synchronicity of the piece considering the 3 by 5 scheme of the Rosary these variations are reportedly based on 79 Citations edit a b c Kennedy 1985 p 144 a b c Avant Propos de l auteur Reiter Biedermann s vocal score Winterthur 1858 p 1 As quoted in Holoman 1989 p 262 Bonds 2001 24 836 a b Robert Strassburg by Neil W Levin Milken Archive of Jewish Music Kennedy 1964 p 444 a b c d e f Bonds 2001 24 837 a b c Bonds 2001 24 835 a b Larue amp Wolf 2001 24 812 As cited in Bonds 2001 24 837 a b c Bonds 2001 24 838 a b Todd 2001 16 403 Bonds 2001 24 839 Franklin 2001 15 622 a b c Britten Benjamin A Note on the Spring Symphony Music Survey Spring 1950 As quoted in White 1970 p 62 a b c d Steinberg 2005 pp 241 242 a b c Schwarz 1980 17 270 a b Cox 1972 2 115 a b MacDonald n d p 3 a b Samson 1990 pp 122 126 a b Weitzman 1996 p 5 Kosz 2001 p 2 Steinberg 2005 p 265 Palmer 1980 12 306 Penguin 774 a b c d e Whitehouse 2006 p 2 Anon n d p 4 a b c d Glass 1999 Bonds 2001 24 833 a b Steinberg 1995 p 268 Kennedy 1964 p 444 a b Kennedy 1990 p 151 a b c Holoman 1989 pp 262 263 a b c Macdonald 1980 2 596 a b c Kennedy 1964 p 444 a b Franklin 2001 15 618 a b c MacDonald 2001 4 341 a b Ottaway 1973 p 17 a b c d Freed 2005 a b Steinberg 1995 p 335 Ottaway 1973 pp 50 53 a b White 1979 p 321 Sachs amp Dahlhaus 2001 6 564 569 Stravinsky Chronicles as cited in White 1979 p 321 Kennedy 1990 p 100 Kennedy 1990 p 152 Cooke 1980 p 93 Cited in Kennedy 1964 p 99 a b c Maes 2002 p 366 Truscott 1972 2 143 144 MacDonald n d p 3 Samson 1990 p 122 Samson 1990 p 126 Holoman 1989 p 263 Mitchell 1980 p 515 Antcliffe 1918 p 337 Cited in McVeagh 1996 p 5 Ernest Newman cited in McVeagh 1996 p 6 a b Antcliffe 1918 p 338 a b Profitt 1995 a b Mitchell 2006 p 2 Mitchell 2006 pp 2 3 Schluren amp Treichel 1998 p 13 Shulstad 2005 pp 217 219 Searle 1972 1 269 a b c Shulstad 2005 p 217 Shulstad 2005 p 219 Shulstad 2005 p 220 Searle 1980 11 45 Volkov 1979 p 184 Arnshtam interview with Sofiya Khentova in Khentova In Shostakovich s World Moscow 1996 234 as quoted in Wilson 2006 pp 171 172 Volkov 2004 p 175 a b Volkov1995 p 427 Volkov 1995 pp 427 428 a b Steinberg 1995 p 557 Holoman 1989 p 261 Temperley 1980 18 460 a b Moody 2001 22 566 a b c d Ivashkin 1997 p 5 As cited in Ivashkin 1997 p 5 a b c d Ivashkin 1996 p 161 Weitzman 1996 p 5 a b c Ivashkin 1996 p 165 Weitzman 1996 p 6 Weitzman 1996 p 7 Sources edit Anon n d notes for Sony Classical SK 63368 Tan Dun Symphony 1997 Heaven Earth Mankind Yo Yo Ma cello Yip s Children s Choir Imperial Bells Ensemble of China Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra conductor not listed Antcliffe Herbert 1918 A Brief Survey of the Works of Granville Bantock The Musical Quarterly IV 2 Boston G Schirmer 333 346 doi 10 1093 mq IV 3 333 Bonds Mark Evan 2001 Symphony II 19th century In Stanley Sadie John Tyrrel eds The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians 2nd ed London Macmillan ISBN 0 333 60800 3 Cooke Deryck 1980 Gustav Mahler An Introduction to His Music Cambridge London and New York Cambridge University Press ISBN 0 521 29847 4 Franklin Peter 2001 Mahler Gustav In Stanley Sadie John Tyrrell eds The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians 2nd ed London Macmillan ISBN 0 333 60800 3 Freed Richard January 2005 Symphony No 7 A Toltec Symphony program notes The Kennedy Center Retrieved 14 December 2019 Glass Philip 1999 Notes by Philip Glass on his Fifth Symphony Nonesuch Records 79618 2 Archived from the original on 2007 06 11 Retrieved 2009 04 05 Holoman D Kern 1989 Berlioz Cambridge Massachusetts Harvard University Press ISBN 0 674 06778 9 Ivashkin Alexander 1996 Alfred Schnittke London Phaidon Press ISBN 0 7148 3169 7 Ivashkin Alexander 1997 Schnittke Symphony No 2 St Florian notes Marina Katsman contralto Yaroslav Zdorov countertenor Oleg Dorgov tenor Sergei Veprintsev bass State Symphony Capella of Russia conducted by Valery Polyansky Colchester Chandos Records 9519 Kennedy Michael 1964 The Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams Oxford and New York Oxford University Press Kennedy Michael 1985 The Oxford Dictionary of Music Oxford and New York Oxford University Press ISBN 0 19 311333 3 Kennedy Michael 1990 Mahler New York Schirmer ISBN 0 460 12598 2 Kosz Stanislaw 2001 Gorecki Symphony No 2 Beatus Vir notes Zofia Kilanowicz soprano Andrzej Dobber baritone Polish Radio Choir Silesian Philharmonic Choir and Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra Katowice conducted by Antoni Wit Hong Kong HNH International 8 555375 Larue Jan Wolf Eugene K 2001 Symphony I 18th Century In Stanley Sadie John Tyrrell eds The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians 29 vols 2nd ed London Macmillan ISBN 0 333 60800 3 Macdonald Hugh 1980 Berlioz Louis Hector In Stanley Sadie ed The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians London Macmillan doi 10 1093 gmo 9781561592630 article 51424 ISBN 0 333 23111 2 MacDonald Malcolm 2001 Brian William Havergal In Stanley Sadie John Tyrrell eds The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians 2nd ed London Macmillan doi 10 1093 gmo 9781561592630 article 03970 ISBN 0 333 60800 3 MacDonald Malcolm n d Havergal Brian Symphonies 4 and 12 notes Jana Valaskova soprano Slovak Choirs and Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Adrian Leaper Naxos Records 8 570308 McVeagh Diana 1996 Granville Bantock Two Choral Symphonies notes BBC Singers conducted by Simon Joly Albany New York Albany Records TROY 180 Maes Francis 2002 A History of Russian Music From Kamarinskaya to Babi Yar Translated by Arnold J Pomerans Erica Pomerans Berkeley Los Angeles and London University of California Press ISBN 0 520 21815 9 Mitchell Donald 1980 Sadie Stanley ed The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians Vol 11 London Macmillan pp 505 529 ISBN 978 0 333 23111 1 Mitchell Lewis 2006 Malcolm Williamson Choral Music notes Kathryn Cook alto Joyful Company of Singers conducted by Peter Broadbent Hong Kong Naxos Records 8 557783 Moody Ivan 2001 Schnittke Shnitke Alfred Garriyevich In Stanley Sadie John Tyrrell eds The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians 29 vols 2nd ed London Macmillan ISBN 0 333 60800 3 Ottaway Hugh 1973 Vaughan Williams Symphonies BBC Music Guides Seattle University of Washington Press ISBN 0 295 95233 4 Palmer Christopher 1980 Milhaud Darius In Stanley Sadie ed The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians 20 vols London Macmillan ISBN 0 333 23111 2 Profitt John 1995 I Hear America Singing Choral Music of Roy Harris notes Roberts Wesleyan College Chorale conducted by Robert Shewan Albany New York Albany Records TROY 164 Sachs Kurt Jurgen Dahlhaus Carl 2001 Counterpoint In Stanley Sadie John Tyrrell eds The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians 29 vols 2nd ed London Macmillan ISBN 0 333 60800 3 Samson Jim 1990 The Music of Szymanowski White Plains New York Pro Am Music Resources ISBN 0 912483 34 2 Schluren Christoph Treichel Hans Ulrich 1998 Henze Symphony No 9 notes Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Ingo Metzmacher London EMI EMI 56513 Schwarz Boris 1980 Shostakovich Dmitry Dmitryevich In Stanley Sadie ed The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians 20 vols 1st ed London Macmillan ISBN 0 333 23111 2 Searle Humphrey 1980 Liszt Franz In Stanley Sadie ed The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians 20 vols 1st ed London Macmillan ISBN 0 333 23111 2 Shulstad Reeves 2005 Liszt s symphonic poems and symphonies In Kenneth Hamilton ed The Cambridge Companion to Liszt Cambridge and New York Cambridge University Press pp 206 222 ISBN 0 521 64462 3 Simpson Robert ed The Symphony 2 vols New York Drake Publishing 1972 Searle Humphrey 1972 Franz Liszt Volume 1 Haydn to Dvorak ISBN 0 87749 244 1 Cox David 1972 Ralph Vaughan Williams Volume 2 Mahler to the Present Day ISBN 0 87749 245 X Truscott Harold 1972 Havergal Brian Volume 2 Mahler to the Present Day ISBN 0 87749 245 X Steinberg Michael 1995 The Symphony Oxford and New York Oxford University Press ISBN 0 19 506177 2 Steinberg Michael 2005 The Choral Masterworks Oxford and New York Oxford University Press ISBN 0 19 512644 0 Temperley Nicholas 1980 Symphony II 19th century In Stanley Sadie John Tyrrell eds The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians 20 vols 2nd ed London Macmillan ISBN 0 333 23111 2 Todd R Larry 2001 Mendelssohn Bartholdy Jacob Ludwig Felix In Stanley Sadie John Tyrrell eds The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians 29 vols 2nd ed London Macmillan ISBN 0 333 60800 3 Volkov Solomon 1979 Testimony The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich Translated by Antonina W Bouis New York Harper amp Row ISBN 0 06 014476 9 Volkov Solomon 1995 St Petersburg A Cultural History Translated by Antonina W Bouis New York The Free Press ISBN 0 02 874052 1 Volkov Solomon 2004 Shostakovich and Stalin The Extraordinary Relationship Between the Great Composer and the Brutal Dictator Translated by Antonina W Bouis New York Knopf ISBN 0 375 41082 1 Weitzman Ronald 1996 Schnittke Symphony No 4 Three Sacred Hymns notes Iarslav Zdorov countertenor Dmitri Pianov tenor Igor Khudolei piano Evgeniya Khlynova celesta Elena Adamovich harpsichord State Symphony Capella of Russia and Russian State Symphony Orchestra conducted by Valery Polyansky Colchester Chandos Records 9463 White Eric Walter 1970 Benjamin Britten His Life and Operas Berkeley and Los Angeles University of California Press ISBN 0 520 01679 3 White Eric Walter 1979 1966 Stravinsky The Composer and His Works 2nd ed Berkeley University of California Press ISBN 0 520 03983 1 Whitehouse Richard 2006 Krzysztof Penderecki Symphony No 7 Seven Gates of Jerusalem notes Olga Pasichnyk soprano Aga Mikolaj soprano Ewa Marciniec alto Wieslaw Ochman tenor Romuald Tesarowicz bass Boris Carmeli narrator Warsaw National Philharmonic Choir and Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Antoni Wit Hong Kong Naxos Records 8 557766 Wilson Elizabeth 2006 1994 Shostakovich A Life Remembered 2nd ed Princeton New Jersey Princeton University Press ISBN 0 691 12886 3 Further reading editLatham Alison ed The Oxford Companion to Music Oxford and New York Oxford University Press 2002 ISBN 0 19 866212 2 March Ivan Edward Greenfield Robert Layton and Paul Czajkowski edited by Ivan March The Penguin Guide to Recorded Classical Music completely revised 2009 edition London Penguin Books 2008 ISBN 0 14 103335 5 Morton Brian Shostakovich His Life and Music Life and Times London Haus Publishers 2007 ISBN 1 904950 50 7 Pirie Peter J Bantock Sir Granville The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians 1st edition edited by Stanley Sadie 20 vols London Macmillan 1980 ISBN 0 333 23111 2 Short Michael Notes for Hyperion CDA66660 Holst Choral Fantasy First Choral Symphony London Hyperion Records Limited 1993 Solomon Maynard Late Beethoven Music Thought Imagination Berkeley Los Angeles and London University of California Press 2003 ISBN 0 520 23746 3 Taylor Philip notes to Chandos 10311 Scriabin Symphony No 1 Rachmaninov Choruses Larissa Kostyuk contralto Oleg Dolgov tenor State Symphony Capella of Russia and Russian State Symphony Orchestra conducted by Valery Polyansky London Chandos Records 2005 Tilmouth Michael Ternary form The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians 1st edition edited by Stanley Sadie London Macmillan 1980 20 vols ISBN 0 333 23111 2 Whitehouse Richard notes to Naxos 8 570450 Krzysztof Penderecki Symphony No 8 Michaela Kaune soprano Wojtek Drabowicz baritone Warsaw National Philharmonic Choir and Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Antoni Wit Hong Kong Naxos Records 2008 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Choral symphony amp oldid 1216686293, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

article

, read, download, free, free download, mp3, video, mp4, 3gp, jpg, jpeg, gif, png, picture, music, song, movie, book, game, games.