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Choirs
For other uses, see Choir (disambiguation).
A choir, chorale, or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. 
 A body of singers who perform together is called a choir or chorus. The former term is very often applied to groups affiliated with a church (whether or not they actually occupy the quire) and the second to groups that perform in theatres or concert halls, but this distinction is far from rigid. "Choir" has the secondary definition of a subset of an ensemble; thus one speaks of the "woodwind choir" of an orchestra, or different "choirs" of voices and/or instruments in a polychoral composition. In typical 18th to 20 century oratorios and masses, chorus or choir is usually understood to imply more than one singer per part, in contrast to the quartet of soloists also featured in these works.
Structure of choirsChoirs are often led by a conductor or choirmaster. 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 a cappella singing (although the American Choral Directors Association[1] discourages this usage in favor of "unaccompanied," since "a cappella" denotes singing "as in the chapel" and much unaccompanied music is secular). Accompanying instruments can consist of practically any instruments, from one to a full orchestra; for rehearsals a piano or organ accompaniment is often used even if a different instrumentation is planned for performance, or for rehearsing a cappella music. While Eastern Orthodox churches and some synagogues ban the use of instruments, in churches of the western rite the accompanying instrument is almost always an organ, although in colonial America, the Moravian Church used a string quartet. Beside the leading of singing in which the congregation participates such as hymns and service music, choirs still sing the full (introit, gradual, communion antiphons appropriate for the different times of the liturgical year) at a few churches, chiefly those of the Anglican or Roman Catholic churches; far more common however is the performance of an anthem at the offertory. The Vatican conducts all of its Masses in Latin [citation needed], and its choir mainly made up of religious clergy[citation needed]. They sing a repertory of Latin Chants known as Gregorian Chant. Local Roman Catholic Churches also use at their discretion to have additional orchestral accompanyment. The most noted Roman Catholic Church in the world to use an orchestral accompanyment is Saint Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. Choirs can be categorized by the voices they include:
Choirs are also categorized by the institutions in which they operate:
Finally, some choirs are categorized by the type of music they perform, such as
Layout on stage
There are various schools of thought regarding how the various sections should be arranged on stage. In symphonic choirs it is common (though by no means universal) to order the choir 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 often sing with the voices all mixed together. 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. Some composers actually specify that choirs should be separated, such as in Benjamin Britten's War Requiem. 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) affect the perception of sound by choristers and auditors. [1] Skills involved in choral singingChoral singers vary greatly in their ability and performance. The best choral singers possess (among others) the following abilities:
Singers who have perfect pitch require yet other skills:
Historical overview of choral musicMedieval music
Classical and Romantic musicComposers of the late 18th century became fascinated with the new possibilities of the symphony and other instrumental music, and generally neglected choral music. Mozart's choral music generally does not represent his best work, with a few exceptions (such as the "Great" Mass in C minor and Requiem in D minor). Haydn became more interested in choral music near the end of his life following his visits to England in the 1790s, when he heard various Handel oratorios performed by large forces; he wrote a series of masses beginning in 1797 and his two great oratorios The Creation and The Seasons. Beethoven wrote only two masses, both intended for liturgical use, although his Missa solemnis is suitable only for the grandest ceremonies. He also pioneered the use of chorus as part of symphonic texture with his Ninth Symphony. 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 Berlioz's Te Deum and Requiem, and Brahms's Ein deutsches Requiem. 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 Bruckner, whose masses and motets startlingly juxtapose Renaissance counterpoint with chromatic harmony. Mendelssohn and Brahms also wrote significant a cappella motets. The amateur chorus (beginning chiefly as a social outlet) began to receive serious consideration as a compositional venue for the part-songs of Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Brahms, and others. These 'singing clubs' were often for women or men separately, and the music was typically in four-part (hence the name "part-song") and either a cappella or with simple instrumentation. At the same time, the Cecilian movement attempted a restoration of the pure Renaissance style in Catholic churches. "Wie lieblich sind deine Wohnungen" (How lovely is thy dwelling place) from Ein deutsches Requiem (A German Requiem) by Johannes Brahms
Problems listening to the file? See media help. 20th and 21st centuriesAs in other genres of music, choral music underwent a period of experimentation and development during the 20th century. While few well-known composers focused primarily on choral music, most significant composers of the early century wrote at least a small amount. The early late-Romantic composers, such as Richard Strauss and Sergei Rachmaninoff, contributed to the genre, but it was Ralph Vaughan Williams who made one of the greatest contributions of this type, writing new a new Mass in G minor harking back to the Renaissance style, but displaying the vibrancy of the new harmonic languages. He also arranged English and Scottish folk songs. Arnold Schoenberg's Friede auf Erden represents the culmination of the late Romantic style, a tonal kaleidoscope whose tonal centers are constantly shifting (similar to his Verklärte Nacht for strings dating from the same period). At around this time, at the tail end of the nineteenth century and the start of the twentieth, male voice choirs attained a particular popularity amongst the coal miners of South Wales, with numerous choirs being established at this time, such as the Treorchy Male Choir. Although the mining communities which birthed these choirs largely died out in the 1970s and 1980s with the decline of the Welsh coal industry, many of these choirs have gone from strength to strength and are seen as a 'traditional' part of Welsh culture. As the century progressed, modernist techniques found their expression in choral music, including serial compositions by Schoenberg, Anton von Webern, and Stravinsky; eclectic compositions by Charles Ives; dissonant counterpoint by Olivier Messiaen (Cinq Rechants) and Paul Hindemith (When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd). Because of the difficulty of singing atonal music, these compositions are rarely performed today, although enjoyed by specialists. More accessible styles found an enduring legacy in choral music. Benjamin Britten wrote a number of well-known choral works, including the War Requiem, Five Flower Songs, and Rejoice in the Lamb. Francis Poulenc's Motets pour le temps de noël, Gloria, and Mass in G are often performed. A primitivist approach is represented by Carl Orff's widely performed Carmina Burana. In the United States, Aaron Copland, Samuel Barber, and Randall Thompson wrote signature American pieces. In Eastern Europe, Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály wrote a small amount of choral music. Post-World War II music took experimentation to its logical extreme. Sinfonia by Luciano Berio includes a chorus. Krzysztof Penderecki's St. Luke Passion includes choral shouting, clusters, and aleatoric techniques. wrote for chorus and electronic tape. Minimalism is represented by Arvo Pärt, whose Johannespassion and Magnificat have received regular performances. Avant-garde techniques:
Black Spirituals came into greater prominence and arrangements of such spirituals became part of the standard choral repertoire. Notable composers and arrangers of choral music in this tradition include Jester Hairston and Moses Hogan. During the mid 20th century, barbershop quartets began experimenting with combining larger ensembles together into choruses which sing barbershop music in 4 parts, often with staging, choreography and costumes. The first international barbershop chorus contest was held in 1953 and continues to this day. During the late 20th century, one of the major areas of growth in the choral movement has been in the areas of GLBT choruses. Starting around 1979, gay men's choruses were founded within a period of months in major U.S. cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Seattle and Dallas. Over the last quarter century the number of such groups, men's, women's and mixed, has exploded. GALA Choruses, an associative group, now has well-over 100 member choruses throughout the world. At the turn of the century, choral music has received a small resurgence of interest due in no small part to a renewed emphasis and interest in multi-cultural music. Ethnomusicology often focuses on vocal music because of the unique combination of both text and music. Although it is too soon to discern trends in the 21st century, the spirit of more practical music which dominated the last decades of the 20th century, most notably represented by John Rutter, Karl Jenkins, and Morten Lauridsen, seems to be continuing in the works of composers like Eric Whitacre and Kentaro Sato. See alsoReferences
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