Richard Sparks on the beauty of earlier tuning systems

Yes dear friends, we need more people blogging about classical music and especially our art of choral music, won't you enter in? Well one brilliant fellow who has been at it quite awhile is Richard Sparks, a most awesome musician with an amazing amount of musical experience all across the globe. Richard's blog is titled "Richard Sparks- Music, Conducting, Choirs". Well that's straight and to the point, no mention of Saint Olaf lutefisk dinners, wookies, or retrograde hemiolas- I say keep it that way, don't distract the readers, eh? You can read Richard's wonderful posts here:

http://richardsparks1.blogspot.com/

What made me want to reference this currently is that Richard blogged a few days ago about the NCCO conference (which my blog dissected completely via 3,122 posts and which I am still recuperating from via really cheap wine from Trader Joe's) and he mentioned something which I totally missed and which I now feel stupid about (especially since I studied under Ben Johnston for awhile- a master of tuning systems)--namely the tuning options in early music, including the Bach which Helmuth Rilling conducted at NCCO. Richard is not critical of Rilling, he simply points out the options available and so on and it is great reading. And just earlier tonight via email he elaborated even more to me- I am hoping he will add those elaborations to his blog soon. So keep an eye out for that as you check back on on his blog.

Richard now teaches at the University of North Texas alongside Jerry McCoy. UNT is a leader in live streaming their choral concerts. The live stream info can be found here:

http://recording.music.unt.edu/index.php/live

Also, Richard's Collegium performances, whose broadcasts are not as restricted (under copyright law), can be found on YouTube here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/untrecserv

It's amazing the amount of resources we have today that us old folks didn't have "back in the day". Hmmm...I still have my eight year old sort of believing I grew up with dinosaurs. And heck, he doesn't even really know what a videocassette tape was/is, or for that matter a vinyl LP, blah blah, blah.

Anyway, here is some of what Richard wrote about Bach and some tuning ideas (yes, my immediate thought was too many choirs rehearsing with a piano present-- with the piano's percussive, uber high major thirds overwhelming the ear!). But to read the entire Sparks blog on this subject please go here

And now excerpts from Richard:

"I was able to attend the NCCO (National Collegiate Choral Organization) conference in Colorado Springs in early November.

It was a marvelous conference with both excellent concerts/choirs and sessions.

Helmuth Rilling was the headliner, working with James Kim's excellent CSU Chamber Choir. Everyone knows Rilling's work, of course, from his Gächinger Kantorei and Bach-Collegium Stuttgart and his work since 1970 with the Oregon Bach Festival.

Certainly, his work had a big impact on me. As an undergraduate I was tremendously interested in baroque music and got to know his recordings and those of Wilhelm Ehmann, among others. In 1971 the University of Washington Chorale, under the direction of Rod Eichenberger, took part in one of the Vienna Symposiums organized by Paul Koutney..."

"Since I've done lots of work with period instruments (it's one of the reasons the job at UNT was intriguing to me, and certainly one of the reasons I got the job)--the Bach Ensemble in Seattle from 1978-80 began using period instruments--my ideas about performance have changed as well.

With that in mind, it was interesting to listen to the concert at the NCCO, which had two motets (Singet dem Herrn and Jesu, meine Freude) plus the Magnificat. I found that there were two things that struck me most strongly: some aspects of phrasing and the tuning of major thirds. As I mentioned, Rilling has certainly changed many things about the way he phrases baroque music (with the example of the Kyrie in the B Minor), but there are other aspects where my way of phrasing has changed.

In addition, I've gotten so used to different tuning systems that my ear now wants a considerably lower/pure major third, particularly at cadences. For me, the thirds I heard in Colorado were far too "jangly," the only way I can describe the difference between the "beats" of a tempered third and the beatless relative calm of a pure third (the purity refers to a major third which matches the third heard in the natural harmonic series.

Since I'd just done Jesu, meine Freude with my Collegium Singers at UNT, that was very fresh in my mind. Given what I've said, it's only fair that I provide a link to what we did, not that I'm claiming anything for it, but it represents in a more concrete way what can only be expressed poorly in writing. You can find that performance here: the Bach begins at 1:04 (that's one hour, four minutes). You'll know it's live, not only because it's on video with no possibility of editing, but also because our organist (the fabulous Christoph Hammer) played a decidedly non-picardy third at the end of one of the movements! We were using Vallotti for tuning the organ, a decent compromise for this program, which was mostly mid-baroque from northern Germany (Buxtehude, particularly). For other repertoire (Monteverdi Vespers, for example) we've used quarter-comma meantone, which has extremely pure thirds (in some keys!)."

Concert #6: Highlights from the 2011 NCCO Conference

Saturday night- the final concert of NCCO 2011

Colorado State University Chamber Choir, plus orchestra, James Kim, director; Guest conductor for the performance, Helmuth Rilling

Singet den Herrn ein neues Lied, BWV 225 by JS Bach

Jesu, meine Freude, BWV 227, by JS Bach

Magnificat, BWV 243, by JS Bach



As members of NCCO we were blessed to be part of the ongoing process of James Kim's fine singers as they worked with Helmuth Rilling on these Bach masterpieces. We were allowed to watch an open rehearsal, during which Rilling also addressed the audience now and then about something in the music or a rehearsal technique he was using, plus also another session of Q and A with Rilling. It was obvious that 1) Kim's singers were highly prepared and astounding musicians going in 2) Rilling challenged them to go even further. To me, these challenges he set for them should be taken overall as a great compliment- for he treated them as professional musicians, not students. Kudos to every singer for aspiring to these levels. You know ole JS was looking down with a smile.

In rehearsal, Rilling stopped the choir for tiny details- but hey, maybe they weren't so tiny. One very telling point was when the singers' articulation did not match the violin articulation of the same fairly florid pattern- maybe some other conductor would let it slide, figuring it was too much of a burden for all to fix, but with Rilling it was just the opposite-it had to be fixed. And when we heard, as observers, the difference this made in the clarity of the overall contrapuntal sound- it was obvious that Rilling was right to be so meticulous.

So... the Saturday evening concert approached and everyone was excited- just how good would this performance be? And the answer was, it was spectacular. The singing was intense and so detailed, the professional orchestra was riveted to their parts, and Rilling was in fine form. I was glad to see that he seemed in better physical shape than when he conducted the Mendelssohn Elijah at ACDA Chicago when, to me, it seemed that he was be having difficulties with his back and posture. At NCCO these issues seemed to be gone- he was erect and in his element. Sarah Graham and I sat close to the front and off to the side, Sarah's choice- and it was because she wanted to see all the conductor/singer interaction. It was great fun to watch, and I especially enjoyed watching the trumpet section and also highly enjoyed the fine work of the very wonderful continuo organist (a player far too often overlooked). But the most interesting was watching these young singers faces as they took on the challenge of every wild, crazy, unrelenting melisma passage ole JS and Rilling could throw at them- wow!

When the evening ended there was a prolonged standing ovation- and this was one of the few standing ovations at NCCO ( fine with me, automatic standing ovations for mediocre performances have become ridiculously commonplace). Everyone was so thrilled at the successes of this young chorus, the young soloists, and with James Kim and Helmuth Rilling's fine work.




It was fitting that this group of young musicians who had been so wonderfully prepared by Kim and then worked their tails off for three days in very long rehearsals with Rilling finally got to have center stage on the final night- bravo to them all.

NEXT POST:

With Thanksgiving coming up, I will have a slight interruption in my NCCO posts (I will return to them and talk about all the interest sessions- and the contributions of some pretty energetic octogenarians). But next I want to post a short blog about a college choir and also a high school choir who I have come in contact with recently- it's a bit fitting for Thanksgiving I think- so see you soon for that.

Day Three Repertoire from the NCCO Conference in Ft Collins

Okay sports fans- here is the rep from day three- the final day of an extremely successful NCCO conference. Everyone is all smiles about what they got out of this three days. Choral music is alive and well on many fronts, but especially I see the joy (arising out of their very strong efforts) on young singers' faces- it is thrilling to see!

Northwest Missouri State University, Tower Chamber Choir, dir. by Stephen Town

Literature from the English School for Chorus and Organ (Sean Vogt, organ)

God is gone up, by Finzi (Boosey)

Like as a hart desireth the waterbrooks, by Howells (OUP)

WOW! WOW!

The Lord is Risen, by Arthur Bliss (Novello)

Magnificat and Nunc dimittis, by Rubbra (Allied Lengnick)

Nunc dimittis, by Stanford (cpdl.org)




Colorado State University Chamber Choir, dir. by James Kim; Guest conductor for the performance, Helmuth Rilling

Singet den Herrn ein neues Lied, BWV 225 by JS Bach

Jesu, meine Freude, BWV 227, by JS Bach

Magnificat, BWV 243, by JS Bach

(Oh my, what glorious singing and phrasing, plus great 1st trumpet and piccolo trpt; trpt three filled in the rest of the notes ably)

All in all, great and extremely varied repertoire for this conference. More later, dudes and dudettes!