Third BYU Singers Recording

Here's a recording of Josef Rheinberger's "Kyrie" from his Mass in Eb Major for double choir.



The Archive CD is almost done! Hooray!

One of my favorite posters . . .

. . . to address one of my pet peeves:

Recording of Kammerkoret Nova

Look what showed up in the mail yesterday! After seeing their music video of "Water Night" up on Eric Whitacre's blog, I decided that I had to investigate this choir for myself. Just looking around on their website, you get a sense of how cool this choir is. It's a good vibe. I wanted to buy the CD rather than download the album's MP3s because MP3s sound like garbage.

After waiting for a while, it arrived! Listening to it in my car and at my computer I have high praise for these engineers. It's been recorded very well. The acoustic is right, the mic placement is very good, overall, really good job.

There's a pretty good variety of repertoire on this album. First the Whitacre. They recorded both "Water Night," and "Sleep," with the idea of dreams as their theme. Let me just say that Whitacre is hard to sing for native-English speaking choirs, let alone a European choir. "Sleep" in particular is extremely difficult because of all the long phrases, sustaining a real "sostenuto sound," and tuning issues, but then add the words and it's at a whole other level. These are both exciting recordings, and in a time when Whitacre is being attempted by so many amateur ensembles that don't fully understand how difficult Whitacre is, these are so refreshing. My only complaint is that "Sleep" could have been phrased a little bit more. Lingering on a word here, putting less emphasis on less important words.

A highlight of the album for me was Rachmaninov's "Bogoroditse Devo." Excellent sound, and really exciting dynamics. This piece is a challenge for smaller choirs because of how it requires so much sustain. They pull it off really well. Another highlight for me was the "Ave Maris Stella," by Trond Kverno. I've always loved this settings since I first heard it in High School and to hear an actual Norwegian choir sing this was a dream come true. I do feel that the "Allegro agitato" in measure 29 needs even more agitation, but that's just my opinion. I also feel that the "Ave Virgo Sanctissimo" should have been at the beginning of their "Maria" set rather than at the end. I suspect the reason for this was because Ms. Sundal wanted a different color before going into the "Deus, Qui Illuminas." Which by the way is spectacular. That recording pretty much nails me to my seat every time.

The last track "Trilo," is the perfect album/concert closer for this choir. It's a stunning piece, and has been recorded here so beautifully. The notes say that it's based on western coast Norwegian tunes sung by the wives of husbands returning home from sea. It's hard to put into words how cool this last piece sounds to me. It almost feels like it was composed for this choir or something because they just nailed it here. The emotion of this recording is overwhelming and felt through the entire song. Something that this choir understands that others do not is that performances succeed best when the goal and motive is to express rather than impress.

Final thought: this is the kinda of ensemble I want to write music for. Great recordings with excellent performances. I highly recommend it.

Here's their music video of "Water Night," but just be aware that it doesn't sound as good on YouTube as it does on the CD.

Les Paul 1915-2009

Counterpoint

This week I bought a book about counterpoint from the BYU Bookstore (and even got $25 back for over paying!). This is an idea that fascinates me, but also eludes me. The notion of having multiple independent melodies all working together to create something harmonious is mind-blowing. It's also a feature that I think is missing in a great deal of choral music today.

The author quotes the late Robert Russel Bennett, an arranger for Broadway shows, who said that "counterpoint is the indispensable element in arranging; if it is missing, the audience's enjoyment of the music will be lessened, even thought they will not identify the missing feature."

Bold words. I can agree with him to a degree. I've noticed that a lot of new choral music coming out is mostly homophonic. Just a bunch of stacked chords. Now, don't get me wrong, I love stacked chords, and homophonic music can be really effective and moving. It can, however, be severely limiting. I want more to music that just chords, and singers want more to sing that just chords. There's something missing right now.

There's a certain kind of lost art/black magic associated with modern polyphony. It's an interesting kind of language to work in. There's only a handful of living choral composers I feel that really have it down and I am certainly not one of those. That's why I bought this book. I want to start understanding this element that is lacking from so much music today, but that makes a huge difference in the end result.

So, I've started with chapter one and will work through it slowly and probably blog about what I've learned and maybe even post some results. I have no idea how much of this I'm going to grasp, but I'm excited to at least give it a try!

Trip to Moab

For Pioneer Day weekend I went down to Moab with some my greatest friends, and saw Arches National Park. It's really quite a remarkable place. It was very timely too, because I was getting very sick of the routine I was in. This was a great get-away, to spent some time relaxing and recharging. There's nothing quite like a good break.

On one of our hikes we got to talking about why we go on vacation. We asked ourselves what was so relaxing about hiking in sweltering heat in southern Utah in July. What's our motivation to get up and get away? When we take breaks, why do we travel long distances instead of seeing what our neighborhood has to often?

Regarding the last point, I knew some people in Northern Ireland who had never been to see The Giant's Causeway. From my own hometown, some friends have never see the Golden Gate Bridge or even bothered to cross it. It's funny sometimes how we'll travel around the world to see something, but wont bother with the wonders in our own backyard.

Anyway, I took this break because I wanted to get out of my office. Travel someplace where I could mentally escape my responsibilities even if only for a few days. I'm not trying to get out of my duties, I just needed some space.

More importantly, I went on this trip because I wanted to spend time with my friends, including my best friend. I wanted to strengthen my friendships with these people who are, in my opinion, the creme of the crop. They've meant a great deal to me. I was glad to be able to reconnect. Camping out in Moab, without any outside stress or obligation, allowed us to focus on what's most important.

At night, we were bombarded with stars. Our perspective of these constellations is quite fragile. We constantly forget about them simply because they are overpowered by city street lights. We all need a reality check now and then.

I highly recommend seeing Arches National Park and spending a lot of time there. Just go during a cooler time of the year!