At 6:04 AM -0500 2/23/10, Dennis Bathory-Kitsz wrote:
On Tue, February 23, 2010 12:01 am, [email protected] wrote:
Was that so they would blend?
See John Howell's response -- all the answers!
Thanks! But not quite all.
No, not primarily for blend. Choral blend comes from matching vowel
qualities exactly, and that's something Fred would have insisted on.
And English is full of diphthongs and triphthongs and he was
concerned with the exact moments of transition. But he (and his tone
syllables) were primarily concerned with intelligibility, for which
the voicing of consonants and their unison execution are vital.
Beautiful tone comes from vowels; intelligible speech comes from
consonants. In ANY language, including the Italian that singers love
so much.
Blend, balance, and diction are three separate factors that all go
into good choral performance. Waring did have some personal quirks
of interpretation that many other choral directors didn't care for,
and therefore they often rejected his tone syllable approach. But we
have to remember that a young Robert Shaw was Waring's assistant
conductor for a while, and he certainly adopted Waring's approach
without the stylistic quirks, because they just made good sense. And
Shaw is considered the absolute master by many, especially those who
had the pleasure of working with him.
John
--
John R. Howell, Assoc. Prof. of Music
Virginia Tech Department of Music
College of Liberal Arts & Human Sciences
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
"We never play anything the same way once." Shelly Manne's definition
of jazz musicians.
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