Stick Time: Cupid’s Arrow in Choral Music

You’re cruising along in your car, listening to music on the radio.  More often than not, in one form or another, the song will have a single overriding textual theme: Love.  Whether looking for it, drunk from it, or heartbroken because it was taken away, romantic love has been THE focus of secular poetic texts for millennia.

 

In choral music, however, sacred texts have been the poetry of choice.  Yet, even we are not necessarily safe from cupid’s arrow.

 

In our opinion, it seems that those choral works set to romantic themes have a power, a depth, and an unwavering conviction that somehow seems to elude the solo love song.  Perhaps it’s the blending of human voices as a metaphor for the blending of emotional involvements.  Or perhaps it could be that the hearts of singers in a choir tend to beat in tempo with one another.

 

Whatever the reason, the choral works set to texts on romantic love tend to be stunning and powerful.

 

With that in mind, and given that Friday is Valentine’s Day, here is a performance from an ACDA National Conference of choral work on the topic of romantic affection.  Enjoy (and, boys, don’t forget to order flowers!).