Choir

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"Choral" redirects here. Not to be confused with coral. For other uses, see Choir (disambiguation).

Evensong rehearsal by Blue Coat C of E School Choir, Coventry, in the quire of York Minster
, showing carved choirstalls
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A choir (/ˈkwaɪər/ KWIRE; also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform or in other words is the music performed by the ensemble. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which spans from the medieval era to the present, or popular music repertoire. Most choirs are led by a conductor, who leads the performances with arm, hand, and facial gestures.

The term choir is very often applied to groups affiliated with a church (whether or not they actually occupy the quire), whereas a chorus performs in theatres or concert halls, but this distinction is not rigid. Choirs may sing without instruments, or accompanied by a piano, accordion, pipe organ, a small ensemble, or an orchestra.

A choir can be a subset of an ensemble; thus one speaks of the "woodwind choir" of an orchestra, or different "choirs" of voices or instruments in a polychoral composition. In typical 18th century to 21st century oratorios and masses, 'chorus' or 'choir' implies that there is more than one singer per part, in contrast to the quartet of soloists also featured in these works.

A holiday choir singing several songs in Düsseldorf, Germany

Structure

Choirs are often led by a conductor or choirmaster/mistress or a choir director. Most often choirs consist of four sections intended to sing in four part harmony, but there is no limit to the number of possible parts as long as there is a singer available to sing the part: Thomas Tallis wrote a 40-part motet entitled Spem in alium, for eight choirs of five parts each; Krzysztof Penderecki's Stabat Mater is for three choirs of 16 voices each, a total of 48 parts. Other than four, the most common number of parts are three, five, six, and eight.

Choirs can sing with or without instrumental accompaniment. Singing without accompaniment is called

secular). Accompanying instruments vary widely, from only one instrument (a piano or pipe organ) to a full orchestra of 70 to 100 musicians; for rehearsals a piano or organ
accompaniment is often used, even if a different instrumentation is planned for performance, or if the choir is rehearsing unaccompanied music. With the new prevalence of electronic devices, small groups can use these together with learning tracks for both group rehearsals and private practice.

Many choirs perform in one or many locations such as a church, opera house, school or village hall. In some cases choirs join up to become one "mass" choir that performs for a special concert. In this case they provide a series of songs or musical works to celebrate and provide entertainment to others.

Role of conductor

meter), and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble.[2]

In most choirs, the same individual acts as musical director (responsible for deciding the repertoire and engaging soloists and accompanists), chorus master/mistress (or répétiteur) (responsible for training and rehearsing the singers), and conductor (responsible for directing the performance). However, these roles may be divided, especially when the choir is combined with other forces, for example in opera.

The conductor or choral director typically stands on a raised platform and he or she may or may not use a baton; using a baton gives the conductor's gestures greater visibility, but many choral conductors prefer conducting with their hands for greater expressiveness, particularly when working with a smaller ensemble. In the 2010s, most conductors do not play an instrument when conducting, although in earlier periods of classical music history, leading an ensemble while playing an instrument was common. In Baroque music from the 1600s to the 1750s, conductors performing in the 2010s may lead an ensemble while playing a harpsichord or the violin (see Concertmaster). Conducting while playing a piano may also be done with musical theatre pit orchestras. Communication is typically non-verbal during a performance (this is strictly the case in art music, but in jazz big bands or large pop ensembles, there may be occasional spoken instructions). However, in rehearsals, the conductor will often give verbal instructions to the ensemble, since they generally also serve as an artistic director who crafts the ensemble's interpretation of the music.

Conductors act as guides to the choirs they conduct. They choose the works to be performed and study their scores, to which they may make certain adjustments (e.g., regarding tempo, repetitions of sections, assignment of vocal solos and so on), work out their interpretation, and relay their vision to the singers. Choral conductors may also have to conduct instrumental ensembles such as orchestras if the choir is singing a piece for choir and orchestra. They may also attend to organizational matters, such as scheduling rehearsals,[3] planning a concert season, hearing auditions, and promoting their ensemble in the media.

In worship services

Historically, the sung repertoire divides into sacred or religious music and secular music. While much religious music has been written with concert performance in mind, its origin lies in its role within the context of liturgy.

Accompaniment

Egyptian Alexandria Jewish choir of Rabbin Moshe Cohen at Samuel Menashe synagogue, Alexandria, Egypt

Most

colonial America, the Moravian Church
used groups of strings and winds. Many churches which use a contemporary worship format use a small amplified band to accompany the singing, and Roman Catholic Churches may use, at their discretion, additional orchestral accompaniment.

Liturgical function

In addition to leading of singing in which the

Roman Catholic churches; far more common however is the performance of anthems or motets
at designated times in the service.

Types

Cantores Minores in the Helsinki Cathedral
in 2013

One of the main classifications of choirs is by gender and age since these factors have traditionally been thought to affect how a choir sounds[4] and what music it performs.[5] The types are listed here in approximate descending order of prevalence at the professional and advanced amateur or semi-professional levels.

  • Adult mixed choir (with male and female voices). This is perhaps the most common and dominant type, usually consisting of soprano, alto, tenor, and bass voices, often abbreviated as SATB.[6] Often one or more voices is divided into two, e.g., SSAATTBB, where each voice is divided into two parts, and SATBSATB, where the choir is divided into two semi-independent four-part choirs. Occasionally baritone voice is also used (e.g., SATBarB), often sung by the higher basses. In smaller choirs with fewer men, SAB, or soprano, alto, and baritone arrangements allow the few men to share the role of both the tenor and bass in a single part and altos may also sing the tenor part.
  • Male choir (or choir of men & boys) with the same SATB voicing as a mixed choir, but with boys singing the upper part (often called trebles or boy sopranos) and men singing alto (in falsetto), also known as countertenors. This format was until recently typical of the British cathedral choir (e.g. King's College, St Paul's, Westminster Abbey). However, all cathedrals now accept women and girls and by 2019 female choristers outnumbered males in English cathedral choirs.[7]
  • Männerchor), a choir of adult men, low voices only, usually consisting of two tenors, baritone, and bass, often abbreviated as TTBB (or ATBB if the upper part sings falsetto in alto range). ATBB may be seen in some barbershop quartet
    music.
  • Boys' choir, a choir of boys, typically singing SSA or SSAA, sometimes including a cambiata/tenor part for boys/young men whose voices are changing and a baritone part for boys/young men whose voices have changed.
  • SSAA
    , or as soprano I, soprano II, and alto, abbreviated SSA.
  • Children's mixed choir (with male and female voices), often two-part SA or three-part SSA, sometimes more voices.
  • Girls' choir, a choir of girls, high voices only, typically SSA or SSAA.

The women's, mixed children's, and all-girls' choirs tend to be professionally less prevalent than the high voiced boys' choirs, the lower voiced men's choruses, or the full SATB choirs.[6] This is due to some extent to lack of scholarships and other types of funding, and a lack of professional opportunities for women such as that of being lay clerks or musical directors. [5]

Choirs are also categorized by the institutions in which they operate:

Lambrook School choir in the 1960s, a typical boys' school choir of the time

Some choirs are categorized by the type of music they perform, such as

In schools

In the United States, middle schools and high schools often offer choir as a class or activity. Some choirs participate in competitions. One kind of choir popular in high schools is show choir. During middle school and high school students' voices are changing. Although girls experience voice change, it is much more significant in boys. A lot of literature in music education has been focused on how male voice change works and how to help adolescent male singers.[8] Research done by John Cooksey categorizes male voice change into five stages, and most middle school boys are in the early stages of change.[8] The vocal range of male and female students may be limited while their voice is changing, and choir teachers must be able to adapt, which can be a challenge to teaching this age range.[9]

Nationally, male students are enrolled in choir at much lower numbers than their female students.[10] The music education field has had a longtime interest in the "missing males" in music programs.[10] Speculation as to why there are not as many boys in choir, and possible solutions vary widely. One researcher found that boys who enjoy choir in middle school may not always go on to high school choir because it simply does not fit into their schedules.[11] Some research speculates that one reason that boys' participation in choir is so low is because the U.S. does not encourage male singers.[12] Often, schools will have a women's choir, which helps the balance issues mixed choirs face by taking on extra female singers. However, without a men's choir also, this can make the problem worse by not giving boys as many opportunities to sing as girls.[10] Other researchers have noted that having an ensemble, or a workshop dedicated to male singers, can help with their confidence and singing abilities.[11][12]

British cathedral choirs are usually made from pupils enrolled in schools.

Arrangements on stage

One possible layout
Choir in front of the orchestra

There are various schools of thought regarding how the various sections should be arranged on stage. It is the conductor's decision on where the different voice types are placed. In symphonic choirs it is common (though by no means universal) to order the choir behind the orchestra from highest to lowest voices from left to right, corresponding to the typical string layout. In a cappella or piano-accompanied situations it is not unusual for the men to be in the back and the women in front; some conductors prefer to place the basses behind the sopranos, arguing that the outer voices need to tune to each other.

More experienced choirs may sing with the voices all mixed. Sometimes singers of the same voice are grouped in pairs or threes. Proponents of this method argue that it makes it easier for each individual singer to hear and tune to the other parts, but it requires more independence from each singer. Opponents argue that this method loses the spatial separation of individual voice lines, an otherwise valuable feature for the audience, and that it eliminates sectional resonance, which lessens the effective volume of the chorus. For music with double (or multiple) choirs, usually the members of each choir are together, sometimes significantly separated, especially in performances of 16th-century music (such as works in the Venetian polychoral style). Some composers actually specify that choirs should be separated, such as in Benjamin Britten's War Requiem. Some composers use separated choirs to create "antiphonal" effects, in which one choir seems to "answer" the other choir in a musical dialogue.

Consideration is also given to the spacing of the singers. Studies have found that not only the actual formation, but the amount of space (both laterally and circumambiently) affects the perception of sound by choristers and auditors.[13]

History

Antiquity

Main article: Music of ancient Greece
See also: Ancient music
Athens, showing Dionysus with actresses (possibly from The Bacchae
) carrying masks and drums

The origins of choral music are found in

traditional music, as singing in big groups is extremely widely spread in traditional cultures (both singing in one part, or in unison, like in Ancient Greece, as well as singing in parts, or in harmony, like in contemporary European choral music).[14]

The oldest unambiguously choral repertory that survives is that of

papyri. The Seikilos epitaph (2c BC) is a complete song (although possibly for solo voice). One of the latest examples, Oxyrhynchus hymn (3c) is also of interest as the earliest Christian music
.

Of the Roman drama's music a single line of Terence surfaced in the 18th century. However, musicologist Thomas J. Mathiesen comments that it is no longer believed to be authentic.[15]

Medieval music

Main article: Medieval music
Church singing, Tacuinum Sanitatis Casanatensis (14th century)

The earliest notated music of western Europe is

Gregory the Great (6th century) up to the present. During the later Middle Ages, a new type of singing involving multiple melodic parts, called organum, became predominant for certain functions, but initially this polyphony was only sung by soloists. Further developments of this technique included clausulae, conductus and the motet (most notably the isorhythmic motet), which, unlike the Renaissance motet, describes a composition with different texts sung simultaneously in different voices. The first evidence of polyphony with more than one singer per part comes in the Old Hall Manuscript
(1420, though containing music from the late 14th century), in which there are apparent divisi, one part dividing into two simultaneously sounding notes.

Renaissance music

Luca della Robbia's Cantoria, Museo dell'Opera del Duomo, Florence

During the

Guillaume Dufay, Josquin des Prez, Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, John Dunstable, and William Byrd; the glories of Renaissance polyphony were choral, sung by choirs of great skill and distinction all over Europe. Choral music from this period continues to be popular with[16]
many choirs throughout the world today.

The

balletto
, celebrating carefree songs of the seasons, or eating and drinking. To most English speakers, the word madrigal now refers to the latter, rather than to madrigals proper, which refers to a poetic form of lines consisting of seven and eleven syllables each.

The interaction of sung voices in Renaissance polyphony influenced Western music for centuries. Composers are routinely trained in the "Palestrina style" to this day, especially as codified by the 18th century music theorist

serial music
may be informed by this study.

Baroque music

Baroque cantata with one voice per part

The Baroque period in music is associated with the development around 1600 of the figured bass and the basso continuo system. The figured bass part was performed by the basso continuo group, which at minimum included a chord-playing instrument (e.g., pipe organ, harpsichord, lute) and a bass instrument (e.g., violone). Baroque vocal music explored dramatic implications in the realm of solo vocal music such as the monodies of the Florentine Camerata and the development of early opera. This innovation was in fact an extension of established practice of accompanying choral music at the organ, either from a skeletal reduced score (from which otherwise lost pieces can sometimes be reconstructed) or from a basso seguente, a part on a single staff containing the lowest sounding part (the bass part).

A new genre was the vocal concertato, combining voices and instruments; its origins may be sought in the polychoral music of the Venetian school.

stile antico or old style continued to be written well into the 19th century. Choirs at this time were usually quite small and that singers could be classified as suited to church or to chamber singing. Monteverdi, himself a singer, is documented as taking part in performances of his Magnificat with one voice per part.[17]

Independent instrumental accompaniment opened up new possibilities for choral music.

Delalande) separated these sections into separate movements. Oratorios (of which Giacomo Carissimi
was a pioneer) extended this concept into concert-length works, usually based on Biblical or moral stories.

Hallelujah Chorus
The Hallelujah Chorus, from George Frideric Handel's Messiah, is one of the most famous choruses of all time
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A pinnacle of baroque choral music, (particularly oratorio), may be found in George Frideric Handel's works, notably Messiah and Israel in Egypt. While the modern chorus of hundreds had to await the growth of Choral Societies and his centennial commemoration concert, we find Handel already using a variety of performing forces, from the soloists of the Chandos Anthems to larger groups (whose proportions are still quite different from modern orchestra choruses):

Yesterday [Oct. 6] there was a Rehearsal of the

Coronation Anthem in Westminster-Abby, set to musick by the famous Mr Hendall: there being 40 voices, and about 160 violins, Trumpets, Hautboys, Kettle-Drums
and Bass' proportionable..!

— Norwich Gazette, October 14, 1727

Lutheran composers wrote instrumentally accompanied

Masses, the Magnificat
and the cantatas.

A point of hot controversy today is the so-called "Rifkin hypothesis," which re-examines the famous "Entwurff" Bach's 1730 memo to the

one voice per part
in mind. A few sets of original performing parts include ripieni who reinforce rather than slavishly double the vocal quartet.

Classical and Romantic music

Composers of the late 18th century became fascinated with the new possibilities of the symphony and other instrumental music, and generally neglected choral music.

Missa solemnis is probably suitable only for the grandest ceremonies due to its length, difficulty and large-scale scoring. He also pioneered the use of chorus as part of symphonic texture with his Ninth Symphony and Choral Fantasia
.

"Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen"
(How lovely is thy dwelling place) from
Ein deutsches Requiem by Johannes Brahms
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In the 19th century, sacred music escaped from the church and leaped onto the concert stage, with large sacred works unsuitable for church use, such as

Rossini's Stabat mater, Schubert's masses, and Verdi's Requiem also exploited the grandeur offered by instrumental accompaniment. Oratorios also continued to be written, clearly influenced by Handel's models. Berlioz's L'enfance du Christ and Mendelssohn's Elijah and St Paul are in the category. Schubert, Mendelssohn, and Brahms also wrote secular cantatas, the best known of which are Brahms's Schicksalslied and Nänie
.

A few composers developed a cappella music, especially

Cecilian movement
attempted a restoration of the pure Renaissance style in Catholic churches.

20th and 21st centuries

In the United States, development of mixed choirs was pioneered by groups such as

The St. Olaf Choir and Westminster Choir College. These groups were characterized by arrangements of hymns and other sacred works of christian nature which helped define the choral sound of the United States for most of the 20th century. Secular choral music in the United States was popularized by groups such as the Dale Warland Singers
throughout the late 20th century.

The Big Choral Census online survey was established to find out how many choirs there were in the UK, of what type, with how many members, singing what type of music and with what sort of funding. Results estimated that there were some 40,000 choral groups operating in the UK and over 2 million people singing regularly in a choir. Over 30 percent of the groups listed described themselves a community choirs, half of the choirs listed sing contemporary music although singing classical music is still popular. Most choirs are self funding. It is thought that the increase in popularity of singing together in groups has been fed to some extent in the UK by TV progammes such as Gareth Malone's 'The Choir'. [18]

Apart from their roles in liturgy and entertainment, choirs and choruses may also have social-service functions,

Choir of Hard Knocks[21] or for special groups such as Military Wives
.

See also

  • Carol (music), a festive song or hymn often sung by a choir or a few singers with or without instrumental accompaniment
  • Come and sing

References

  1. ^ "See "Choral Reviews Format" on ACDA.org". Archived from the original on 3 April 2015. Retrieved 28 August 2012.
  2. ISBN 9780199203833
    . Conducting
  3. ^ Espie Estrella. "The Conductor of an Ensemble". about.com. Archived from the original on 15 April 2013. Retrieved 26 September 2019.
  4. ISSN 0261-3077
    . Retrieved 17 May 2023.
  5. ^
    ISSN 0261-3077
    . Retrieved 16 May 2023.
  6. ^ a b Dr. Barbara Hall (2016). "The gendered choir". Norton Centre. Retrieved 26 December 2020.
  7. ^ "Girl choristers now outnumber boys in English cathedrals for first time in history". Classic FM. Retrieved 16 May 2023.
  8. ^
    S2CID 143947270
    .
  9. ^ Robinson, Russell L. (September 2007). "Junior High/Middle School Choirs". Choral Journal. 48 (3): 41–48.
  10. ^
    S2CID 143560172
    .
  11. ^
    S2CID 145316612
    .
  12. ^
    S2CID 142062270
    .
  13. ^ Daugherty, J. "Spacing, Formation, and Choral Sound: Preferences and Perceptions of Auditors and Choristers." Journal of Research in Music Education. Vol. 47, Num. 3. 1999.
  14. ISBN 978-9941401862
    .
  15. ^ Warren Anderson and Thomas J. Mathiesen. "Terence", The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan, 2001), xxv, 296.
  16. ^ Bent, Margaret (1 January 2001). "Dunstaple [Dunstable, Dunstapell, Dumstable, Donstaple, etc.], John". Grove Music Online. Oxford University Press.
  17. ^ Richard Wistreich: "'La voce e grata assai, ma..' Monteverdi on Singing" in Early Music, February 1994
  18. ^ "Number of UK choirs at all-time high". www.prsformusic.com. Retrieved 16 May 2023.
  19. ^ Hilliard, R. E. (2002). "The San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus: A historical perspective on the role of a chorus as a social service".
    S2CID 140495373
    . This descriptive study is an investigation into the history of the formation of the nation's first gay men's chorus, and its relevance to the lesbigay community as a social service.
  20. ^ "The Choir of Unheard Voices" by Laura Hegarty, ABC Tropical North, 10 October 2013
  21. ^ Australia's Choir of Hard Knocks, Al Jazeera, 23 July 2007

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