At 1:23 PM -0700 7/23/05, Mark D Lew wrote:
When I sang with the SF Symphony Chorus, every chorister had two identities -- one for the four/four split (SSAATTBB), and one for three/three (HMLHML). A lot of pieces called for the high-middle-low splits, either for the entire concert or for parts of it. It was understood that when there were three parts, singers would go to the HML divisi, regardless of whether it was written with two parts on the top staff, two on the bottom, or in three separate staves.
A tradition that followed on Broadway as well, of course, at least when the chorus required actual chorus singers and not unison dancers. "Oklahoma!" comes especially to mind, but that was an unusual show as it called for trained chorus singers as well as trained ballet dancers.
Before the season started for my college show ensemble, I sent out a chart telling every singer which notes were theirs in 2-pt, 3-pt, and 4-pt splits, and I would often go from one to another in less than a bar, making a highliter a necessary tool for my singers.
There are some sacred choral pieces that are written with three women's parts and two men's throughout. Off the top of my head, the only one I can think of is Bach's Magnificat, but I'm pretty sure there are more. (Perhaps this is a throwback to the old scheme with the "quintus" part? That's outside my area of knowledge, so I couldn't say.)
Actually "quintus" simply meant the 5th part, and in the renaissance a Quintus partbook might contain parts, for different songs, for a 2nd soprano, 2nd alto, 2nd tenor, and less often a 2nd bass. I think that the Bach texture better represents 17th century practice. Carissimi's "Jephthe" calls for 2 soprano parts, alto, tenor and bass (and I assume that the alto would have been sung by men), and so does some Purcell. I'm less familiar with French practice. Many modern early music ensembles use six singers: 2 sopranos (women in New York Pro Musica; men in the King's Singers), countertenor, tenor, baritone and bass. It allows you to cover quite a lot of the repertoire quite well.
John -- John & Susie Howell Virginia Tech Department of Music Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240 Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034 (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list [email protected] http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
