Jonathan Miller posted two articles awhile back about spirituals . . . check them out here and here.
Here is a little from part one:
It seems to me that, for many of us, the spiritual has at its essence the quality of a gift. There is a sense that we have been given the spiritual through grace—through no merit of our own, simply by something outside of ourselves. A gift is not meant to be hoarded; it is meant to be shared, to be passed on to others. It did not come from us and does not accrue to our credit, and we must give it away if it is to have lasting value and power. The spiritual is part of our cultural heritage, and it powerfully enriches our lives—but none of us owns it.
And part two:
The central characteristic of the spiritual is “the moan”—that fundamental grounding in the sorrow of a people who were subjected to cruelty as a matter of course. Nevertheless, I always feel better after singing a spiritual. It doesn’t matter much what the text is. I would guess that spirituals affect others in similar ways. I even feel better after listening to spirituals, if I’m not singing. Other writers have praised the deep quality of spirituals wherein they affirm our common humanity; and once again there is that quality of “we,” that we are not alone, not even in our suffering.
ChoralNet member Steven Szalaj sent me the following note:
I was really touched by the story, and the demonstration of the power we as conductors and educators in our lives. i look for writing by folks not professionally in "the music dodge" who articulate music's importance in their life. Though this is not specific to choral music, the sentiment applies. The end of the piece identifies the writer's profession.
Mr. K. pushed us harder than our parents, harder than our other teachers, and through sheer force of will made us better than we had any right to be. He scared the daylight out of us.
I doubt any of us realized how much we loved him for it.
Which is why, decades later, I was frantically searching for an instrument whose case still bore the address of my college dorm. After almost a half-century of teaching, at the age of 81, Mr. K. had died of Parkinson’s disease. And across the generations, through Facebook and e-mail messages and Web sites, came the call: it was time for one last concert for Mr. K. — performed by us, his old students and friends.
Very often, in the session the week before, or even sometimes in the rehearsal on the day of the concert, it appears that everyone in the choir has forgotten what songs they know, which parts they sing, and what they’re supposed to be doing. It’s as if some group amnesia has spread like a virus, as well as knocking the energy out of everyone.
Directing the choir in these situations is like climbing uphill through mud and always makes me despair, even though I know it’s just part of the process and everything will (probably) be all right on the night.
But that doesn’t stop me from despairing and wishing that I was somewhere else and really worrying if we’re ever going to pull the concert off. In fact, I even worry if people are ever going to remember how to sing again at all!
Then the concert arrives and (usually) everything goes swimmingly and we all forget the awful rehearsal the week before.
Afterwards, on a high and like a dog with a short memory, we start looking forward to the next concert and hope that everything will go smoothly, until that is, we get to the dreaded rehearsal the week before and it all happens again.
Then we remember: “Ah, yes, this is what happened last time”. But there is nothing we can do, and we despair again and we plod on again and we pray that it will all turn out fine. And it usually does.
Going to conventions are always refreshing for me. I learn, I hear, I get ideas-it's great. I just came back from the ACDA Western Division Conference and had a blast!
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There were some great memories made this week, and I gained a lot of advice/wisdom/introspection about this career and my game plan. Don't get me wrong, there were lots of "receptions" and "teacher therapies" too :) If I learned anything this conference it is: This line of work is grueling, hard and emotionally draining, but with supportive friends who believe in you and God's wisdom and guidance, it can be done (and with a little passion and understanding, it can be done well). I'm ready for the future.
I'm preparing a concert of all misattributed works for my next program, and it's been lots of fun. There are so many pieces to choose from! The BWV is full of bogus Bach works, and unscrupulous publishers in the 18th and 19th centuries claimed that all kinds of stuff was by Mozart, Pergolesi, etc., so it would sell better. Well-known fakes like "Mon coeur se recommande à vous" as well as PDQ Bach are in the program too. I got the inspiration last year after we sang a not-really-by-Buxtehude Magnificat, which we always referred to as the "pseudo-Buxtehude."
It's been amazingly liberating to work on this music. A bass raises his hand and asks if that note should be a G-sharp rather than a G. Or the sopranos find the text underlay awkward and wonder if they can adjust it. The current orthodoxy is to treat composers as gods, so all questions like that always come down to determining the composer's intent. What would Mozart have wanted? we ask, ignoring the question of what Mozart's (or our) audience would want. The composer's score is treated as holy writ, and any deviation treated as blasphemy.
With this bogus music, the will of the composer can be freely ignored. Who cares what Jean-Baptiste Weckerlin (the composer of "Mon coeur") wanted? He's not even a demi-god. Who knows what loser wrote Bach's supposed St. Luke Passion? Whoever he was, he's a pretender to divinity. At last, I can make decisions based on what will make the most sense to the audience, without worrying about the high priests of Historically Informed Performance breathing down my neck.
I like to think I went into music because I had some musical sense and good musical instincts, and I trust my instincts when making musical decisions. It always galls me to have some hierarch of authenticity tell me I'm violating the basic spirit of music when I'm determining what's best for my audience. The cult of the composer is widespread in our era, and I think it's led to a generation of conductors and performers whose highest aspiration is to be technicians, not musicians.
This month the Choral Arts Society of Philadelphia, my choral alma mater, will present a concert that epitomizes the kind of music making that went on in Philadelphia when I was a student there in the 1980’s. The occasion is the 20th anniversary of the premiere of Joseph Castaldo’s extraordinary work for narrator, chorus and orchestra Ancient Liturgy, which was originally commissioned and premiered by the Music Group of Philadelphia under Seán Deibler, who also happened to be Choral Arts’ founding Artistic Director.
As previously mentioned here, Joseph Castaldo was my undergraduate composition teacher for four years. He and Seán Deibler were both tremendous personal and musical influences on me. As I also mentioned here in the past, Seán passed away last year, and this Choral Arts concert is being presented in his memory.
The Bank of England is withdrawing the older style £20 notes that show a portrait of Sir Edward Elgar. Holders of these notes may continue to use them until the end of June 2010.
ChoralNet down March 15: sorry about that. Seems we had a security breach. We had to rebuild the server from scratch. Please be patient as we continue to work out bugs.
Now you can include MP3 files on your user page or within messages.
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