Part 11 (2/2)

In addition to the bowing signs explained on page 103, the conductor should also be familiar with certain other directions commonly found in music for stringed instruments. Some of the most important of these, together with their explanations, are therefore added.

_Pizzicato_ (_pizz._) (pluck the string instead of bowing)

_Col arco_ (or _arco_) (play with the bow again)

_Con sordino_, or } _Avec sourdine_ } (affix the mute to the bridge)

_Senza sordino_, or } _Sans sourdine_ } (remove the mute)

_Divisi_ (_div._) (divide, _i.e._, let some of the players take one of the two tones indicated and the remainder of them the other one. This direction is of course used only in case two or more notes appear on the staff for simultaneous performance. It is customary to divide such pa.s.sages by having the players seated on the side next the audience take the higher tone, while the others take the lower. If the section is to be divided into more than two parts, the conductor must designate who is to play the various tones.)

[Sidenote: SCORE READING]

Reading an orchestral score is a matter for the professional rather than for the amateur; and yet the great increase during recent years in the number of amateur orchestras probably means that more and more of these groups will continue their practice until they are able to play a more difficult cla.s.s of music--this involving the necessity on the part of their conductors of learning to read an orchestral score.

For this reason a few suggestions upon _score reading_ are added as a final paragraph in this chapter, and an example of a score is supplied at the end of the book--Appendix B (p. 166.)

The main difficulties involved in reading a full score are: first, training the eye to read from a number of staffs simultaneously and a.s.sembling the tones (in the mind or at the keyboard) into chords; and second, transposing into the actual key of the composition those parts which have been written in other keys and including these as a part of the harmonic structure. This latter difficulty may be at least partially overcome by practice in arranging material for orchestra as recommended on page 101; but for the first part of the task, extensive practice in reading voices on several staffs is necessary. The student who is ambitious to become an orchestral conductor is therefore advised, in the first place, not to neglect his Bach during the period when he is studying the piano, but to work a.s.siduously at the two- and three-part inventions and at the fugues. He may then purchase miniature scores of some of the string quartets by Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, training himself to read all four parts simultaneously, sometimes merely trying to hear mentally the successive harmonies as he looks at the score, but most often playing the parts on the piano.

After mastering four voices in this way, he is ready to begin on one of the slow movements of a Haydn symphony.

In examining an orchestral score, it will be noted at once that the string parts are always together at the bottom of the page, while the wood-wind material is at the top. Since the strings furnish the most important parts of the harmonic structure for so much of the time, our amateur will at first play only the string parts, with the possible addition of the flute, oboe, and certain other non-transposed voices a little later on. But as he gains facility he will gradually be able to take in all the parts and to include at least a sort of summary of them all in his playing. The student is advised to purchase a number of the Haydn and Mozart symphonies either in the form of pocket editions or in the regular conductor's score, and to practise on these until he feels quite sure of himself. By this time he will be ready to try his hand at a modern score, which will be found not only to contain parts for more instruments, but many more divided parts for the strings. Meanwhile, he is, of course, taking every possible opportunity of attending concerts given by symphony orchestras, and is begging, borrowing, or buying the scores of as many of the compositions as possible, studying them in advance, and taking keen delight in following them at the performance; perhaps even imagining himself to be the conductor, and having visions of changes in interpretation that he would like to make if he were directing. As the result of several years of this sort of study, even an amateur may get to the point where he is able to conduct an orchestra from a full score with some degree of skill, and hence with some little satisfaction both to himself and to the performers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: TABLE SHOWING RANGES OF ORCHESTRAL INSTRUMENTS

_Note:_ The arrangement of instruments here indicated is essentially that found in a modern orchestral score. The ranges given represent practical orchestral usage. Additional tones possible for highly skilled performers or on instruments with certain special keys (like the low _b_ of the flute) are shown in brackets.]

CHAPTER XI

DIRECTING THE CHURCH CHOIR

[Sidenote: THE PROBLEM]

In taking up the special problems of conducting involved in directing a church choir, we shall first of all need to consider the dual nature of church music--its religio-artistic aspect, and in studying the matter from this standpoint we shall soon discover that most of the difficulties that have encompa.s.sed church music in the past can be traced directly or indirectly to a conflict or a lack of balance between these two factors. The churchman has not been sufficiently interested in the _art_ side of church music, while the music director, organist, and singers have all too frequently been not only entirely out of sympathy with the religious work of the church, but have usually been wholly ignorant concerning the purpose and possibilities of music in the church service. The result in most churches at the present time is either that the music is vapid or even offensive from the art standpoint; or else that it emphasizes the purely artistic side so strongly that it entirely fails to perform its function as an integral part of a service whose _raison d'etre_ is, of course, to inculcate religious feeling. ”The church wishes for wors.h.i.+p in music, but not for the wors.h.i.+p of music,” is said to have been the statement of Father Haberl at the Saint Cecilia Conference in Mainz (1884).[28] And it is indeed a far cry from this demand to the very evident deification of music that exists in many of our modern city churches, with their expensive soloists and their utter failure to cause music to minister as ”the handmaid of religion.” The problem is not a new one, and in a book written about a century ago the author says:[29]

The guiding rule which ought always to be present to the mind of a clergyman should also be held in mind by all good musicians who would help the church's object, and not employ the sacred building merely as a place where all kind of sounds that tickle the ear can be heard. All kinds of music are suitable for sacred use that do not raise secular a.s.sociations. A _Largo_, an _Adagio_, a _Grave_, an _Andante_, an _Allegro_, a fugal or a non-fugal composition can all be performed in the Church but should one and all be of a staid and dignified character throughout, elevated and sober, and of such a nature that any preacher of note could say: ”This splendid music is a fitting introduction to my discourse”; or ”After such singing my lips had better be closed, and the spirit left to its own silent wors.h.i.+p.”

[Footnote 28: Quoted by Curwen on the t.i.tle page of _Studies in Wors.h.i.+p Music_ (second series).]

[Footnote 29: Thibaut, _Purity in Music_, translated by Broadhouse, p.

24.]

A distinguished modern writer voices the same thought in the following words:[30]

The singing of the choir must be contrived and felt as part of the office of prayer. The spirit and direction of the whole service for the day must be unified; the music must be a vital and organic element in this unit.

[Footnote 30: d.i.c.kinson, _Music in the History of the Western Church_, p. 401.]

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