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Real composers don’t write choral music

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Allegra Martin blogged her answer to a question from the Massachusets ACDA convention a few weeks ago:
“I don’t remember who it was, but someone raised a hand and made a sad comment about how all the “real composers” (not my words!) were not writing for chorus nowadays.” 
She has a fantastic two part answer.  I will supply part of it here – you can read the rest at her blog site.
On the one hand, he had a point. If you look at the list of Pulitzers won in the last 10 years or so in music, half were awarded to symphonic works. The others were awarded to an opera, 2 chamber works, 1 jazz album, and 2 choral works . . . . On the other hand, I had just presented two lectures on contemporary choral music at Lasell Village, and the notion that we are not getting great new top-notch choral music is ludicrous. But there is this sad divide between the professional classical/new music circles and the choral director circles, and I don’t think choral conductors really realize what is going on out there. I mean, if you are a choral conductor and you haven’t heard David Lang’s Little Match Girl Passion yet, then that’s too bad . . . .  It is not acceptable to me that choral conductors think new music means Whitacre and Z. Randall Stroope, and don’t know the works of Wheeler, Betinis, Lang, Reed Thomas, Sametz, Argento, Bolcom, Ashalomov, Finney, Stucky, Rands, Long, Tann, Harbison, Pinkham, Sierra, O’Regan, Paulus, Walker (which one?), Hawley, Yi. There is so much out there and we have to bridge the divide.
Thanks for the great blog post, Allegra. Keep writing!

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Comments

  1. Not an answer, but further reflection: When composers write for instruments they are generally writing for professional performers or performers who have studied and worked on their instruments over a period of years. When composers write for choirs they are generally writing for performers who have picked up their skills simply by singing for a period of time. The two approaches are very different. and are reflected in their very different repertoires. (I am not forgetting about professional choirs, but they are hugely outnumbered by ‘amateur’ choirs).

    Personally, I absolutely love choral music, and enjoy the challenge of getting people who love to sing, to sing meaningful music at times beyond their reach. I enjoy ‘stretching’ them. I write choral music just about every day. It’s infectious! When I write instrumental music the aim is really quite different. It’s more of a focus on the music itself, on the challenge to write something meaningful for the concertgoer, while stretching ME! I am not as concerned about the orchestra, about ‘stretching’ the orchestra – (although avant garde composers enjoy this!) as I am about the essence of the music I have them play. Every single note and musical line I have ever written for a choir I have myself sung over and over; I can not say the same for instrumental music I have written, although I am always very much aware of line, rhythm, texture and so on as I write. I do ‘imagine’ it as I write, I hear it inwardly, but I do not have the same kind of connection to it as when I write for choirs. It’s just not as ‘personal’. Also, instruments can pull music out of the air; choristers generally cannot. I love the fact that virtually everyone can sing, and given the inclination could do so at a good choral level. Is this the case with instruments? Different worlds!

     
    I wonder out loud how many music school composition programs today offer (appropriate) courses in composing for choirs. They certainly didn’t when I was at university. In fact, I initiated the first “Choral Arranging” course in a major Canadian university, now that I think about it, but I had no training in it! Have we moved on?
     
    Donald P

  2. While I can appreciate your points, Allen, Allegra and John, I think the greater underlying is that choral music has a lot of cheesy stuff out there – seemingly more so than orchestra or band music.  Now, maybe that is a statement stemming from a lack of experience in band or orchestral music, but I for one, am tired of turning on the classical music radio and hearing the same Chanticleer Shenandoah recording.  For me, as a new choral educator, I think the biggest issue is how to find good choral music that is new.  People often say you just have to search for it – but the question is where!  When you ask colleagues, they often refer you to what has been tried and true, and therefore, not new.  I look forward to referring to your list of people Allegra because admittedly, I do not know any of them, except Pinkham and Paulus.
     
    Perhaps the saddest part is that unless cooler stuff is written (music with accessibility without predictability) then helping students realize their own motivation to enjoy choral music becomes harder and harder – particularly when your own band plays some music that is just ridiculously cool.

  3. Thanks for the signal-boost, Philip! It’s kind of a complex and dicey topic, but I suppose the only way to learn about new music is to wade in, right?
     
    Allen, I think you are correct about the priorities of the Pulizter committee, and that the Pulitzers are not a great window on new choral music, but I’ve found that they can be a great way to discover composers that I may not have heard of, and then I can try to figure out what else those composers have done. It’s only one source among many for trying to discover new-to-me composers, of course.

  4. Philip:  Like many things in life, two people can look at the same things and come away with two very different interpretations.  And I think that’s at work here. 
     
    For entirely too long–almost exactly a century, to be exact–“real music” has been defined by people whom I simply have to characterize as “classical snobs” as music that is extremely difficult, extremely complex, and extremely academic (as in the composer doesn’t care what anyone thinks and is writing to please him- or herself exclusively).  And guess what?  One of the “limitations” of choral music is that it has to be performable by good amateur musicians, who may be able to read common practice notation just fine (or not!) but who are totally flummoxed by serial atonality, tone clusters, and constant dissonance.  Yes, it can be learned, but it has to be worth the trouble in the end.
     
    Is that unfair?  I don’t think so.  And I would never argue that searching for new sounds and new approaches is necessarily a bad thing.  But neither is knowing the kind of people you’re writing your music for, and what they’re capable of learning in a reasonable amount of time and  performing with reasonable confidence.
     
    Church choirs are by and large not going to be attracted to what people on the instrumental side consider “standard” contemporary styles and techniques, and their congregations are not going to put up with them.  And that basically leaves the large or very good college and university programs as the basic market for really difficult and demanding music.  And it can sometimes be done beautifully, by ensembles that rehearse 5 days a week!  Some of it can be done by really good high school programs, no question.  And a lesser amount by community choirs, who are after all mostly populated by singers who came up through previous generations of school choirs. 
     
    So yes, the problem is more that “real composers” have come to be defined by themselves as writing important music because they SAY it’s important and ACT as if it’s important.  (Without intending to insult anyone, something about the lunatics running the asylum comes inevitably to mind!)  And choral composers, for better or for worse, seem to be more interested in writing music that people will actually ENJOY.  Sounds like ‘better” to me!!
     
    All the best,
    John
     
    P.S. I’ve tried to make this same point on, for example, the OrchestraList, without much success, in spite of the fact that many composers who gather there complain about the difficulty of getting performances.  And I don’t expect to change anyone’s mind.  But Allen is absolutely correct about the Pulitzers, and the Grammies, for that matter.

  5. Pulitzers aren’t a very good metric here; the Pulitzer committee obviously just has other preferences. That’s like saying real athletes don’t play football because there’s no football in the Olympics.

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