Voice matches set your choir alight

There have been a few changes of personnel in The Newstead Abbey Singers recently, which has prompted me to rethink the seating positions of the choir. I discovered some years ago that this choir sounds best when the voice parts are mixed up and operated to a system that meant that everyone had someone from a different part next to them. The sopranos and altos stand on the front row in pairs as a rule and the men alternate tenor and bass on the back. I stuck to that for quite a while but as new people have come in the sound has become messy.

It is remarkable how the sound changes by moving just one person. Last week I changed the alto pairs and began the rehearsal with all the sopranos together. Later I moved one of the alto pairs to split the sopranos which instantly blended the two lines. I also swapped two of the basses and that also improved the bass sound. We rehearse in different venues from week to week. The available space dictates how we form up so it will give me a chance to try out something else this week.

The meaning of (choral) life

How do we prioritise our choral singing? What comes first? What is most important? Is anything more, or less important than anything else? When singing, or conducting a piece of choral music what do we have to consider? There are the notes; there is the text; there is the articulation and the expression and probably other things as well. Can we give them all equal weight or do we consider some more important than the others?

At the moment I am preparing quite a bit of Romantic music, especially German Romantic music and specifically Brahms and Bruckner. The texts are either German or Latin. Do I give those texts as much importance as I would English ones? Does it matter if the audience isn't going to understand anyway? The pitch and duration of the notes are quite difficult but meaningless if you ignore the expression and the articulation.

So, lots of questions. Are there any answers? When I stand in front of a choir I have to have the answers. I have only one answer. What comes first? The text and the meaning of the text (Whatever the language). The composer's notes are an interpretation of the text and singers have to interpret the interpretation. the text dictates the expression, the articulation and the mood of the notes. The pitch and duration are merely the vehicles for that communication.If, as singers, we don't make the text clear we do the composer and the audience a disservice. As I am finding with the Brahms Requiem concentrate on the expression and the notes are a lot easier.