Choral Music in France and England
The primary focus of this chapter is the performance of sung ensemble music, that is, music with several texted parts. Today the term “choral music” commonly implies that there is more than one performer on each part, while “ensemble music” commonly implies only one performer to a part. However, as we shall see, music of the seventeenth century that we customarily consider choral—polyphonic Masses, motets, anthems, and the like—was very often performed as ensemble music. France and England are grouped together in this chapter, partly for convenience, and partly because there are similarities in the uses to which choral music was put, and indeed in the kinds of choral music preferred, despite the obvious difference that one was a Catholic country and the other Protestant.
Choirs or choruses were to be found in churches, opera houses, and public theaters—places where both the sheer size of the venue and the desire for impressive pageantry mandated larger numbers of singers. On both sides of the Channel (or La Manche), the most up-to-date, stylish music made dramatic use of the contrasting sounds of choral singing, solo singing, and obbligato instruments. In the English verse anthem and the French grand motet, the choral sections tended to be homophonic, with strong dancelike rhythms maximizing the contrast between choral–orchestral tutti and solo singing or playing.
ENSEMBLE SIZE AND VOCAL TYPES IN ENGLAND
Cathedral and chapel choirs in England used men and boys only. The English Chapel Royal of the earlier Stuart period typically included approximately twelve boys and twenty men, augmented by a variable number of unpaid “extraordinary” members.1 For quotidian purposes they sang in smaller numbers on a rotating basis, accompanied by a wind consort (cornetts and sackbuts) and organ. In the period immediately following the Restoration, cornetts substituted for boy trebles: “Above a Year after the Opening of His Majesties Chappel, the Orderers of the Musick there, were necessitated to supply the superiour Parts of their Musick with Cornets and Mens feigned Voices, there being not one Lad, for all that time, capable of singing his Part readily.”2
The countertenor (male alto) enjoyed a great vogue in secular as well as sacred music in the later seventeenth century, and its role as the uppermost voice type of a male trio or chorus survived until the nineteenth century in innumerable anthems and glees.3 However, there can be no justification for trying to make women sound like boys or falsettists, in the name of historically informed performance. A lean choral tone with a minimum of vibrato and meticulous attention to intonation will serve the music admirably and has excellent precedent in the work of such historically oriented ensembles as Les Arts Florissants and the Tallis Scholars, where women sing soprano and both men and women sing alto.
The designation “verse” for a section of an English anthem or canticle setting traditionally means that the section is sung by solo voices. However, Bruce Wood found “unambiguous evidence” in manuscript sources that verse sections of several Chapel Royal anthems could be sung by at least two singers on a part.4 Generalizing from a small number of anthems to an entire repertory is risky. Nevertheless, if it is more practical for you to have two voices on each line in verse sections, the important thing will be to maintain the distinction between verse and “full” by having three or four voices on each part in full sections.
Performance space was limited in the small chapels at Whitehall and Windsor. Peter Holman suggests that spatial separation of groups of players and singers was a feature of music for the Chapel Royal at Whitehall, with singers positioned in the organ loft and instrumentalists in the “musick room”—part of a gallery that opened into the chapel at first-floor (U.S. second-floor) level.5 Fashionable visitors were also seated in the organ loft, at what inconvenience to the musicians we can only imagine. State occasions—for example, royal weddings, coronations, a Te Deum in celebration of a military victory—normally occurred in larger venues such as Westminster Abbey, and it was then that the whole chapel performed together, augmented by the abbey choir and organ.6
The violin band eventually replaced the wind consort as the usual accompaniment for Chapel Royal anthems. This change did not happen overnight, but gradually during the period 1661–1670.7 If there were no obbligato parts, strings generally doubled voices in all passages for full choir, or perhaps only in the final chorus.8 As late as 1676, the theorbo was frequently used to support the continuo in sacred music and consorts, though it disappeared soon thereafter.9 “After the accession of William and Mary, the instrumental accompaniment of anthems was abandoned and the Chapel repertory became virtually indistinguishable from that of the cathedrals.”10
Ensemble music for domestic use, such as madrigals, canzonets, Psalms, Songs, and Sonnets (the title of a collection by William Byrd), ballets, consort songs, and so forth might be sung or played by any family members, male or female, adult or child. Since part music was usually published in sets of partbooks, each part in a separate small volume typically measuring about 5” × 8”, one or two persons at most could sing or play from the same book. Even more limiting were books that displayed all four parts in one opening, positioned so that when the book lay flat in the middle of the table, each part faced a side of the table. The present-day director of an early-music ensemble can confidently arrange a wide variety of mixed one-on-a-part ensembles for this repertory, even omitting a voice if necessary, as long as instruments are used one on a part and, for a setting of a preexisting melody such as a psalm or hymn, the voice with the familiar tune is not omitted.
ENSEMBLE SIZE AND VOCAL TYPES IN FRANCE
The king’s musicians consisted of three distinct entities. The Musique de la Chambre was made up of soloists: singers, lutenists, and players of other soft instruments, responsible for music for the entertainment of the court. The famous 24 Violons du Roi evolved from the Chambre but became virtually autonomous because of their prestige. The Musique de la Grande Écurie employed players of sackbuts, oboes, cornetts, fifes, drums, and trumpets, who provided music for the battlefield, the hunt, and the public processional. In 1645 the Musique de la Chapelle Royale consisted of a maître (an honorary appointment given to a highly placed ecclesiastic rather than a musician), two sous-maîtres (one was Compositeur de la Chapelle, responsible for training the choir as well as choosing and composing music for the king’s Mass), two cornettists, twenty-six singers, eight chaplains, four clerks, and two grammar instructors for the children. In 1682 a new royal chapel was inaugurated at Versailles; by 1708 it listed ninety singers: eleven sopranos, eighteen haute-contres, twenty-three tenors, twenty-four baritones, and fourteen basses. In grands motets the normal texture was five voices, the added part usually a baritone, hence the large number of low voices. There was a mixed ensemble of instrumentalists attached to the chapel, including strings, woodwinds (including a bass cromorne), and a theorbo.11
Lionel Sawkins (1987) points out exceptional instances of women singing in the Chapelle Royale: There is a “Mlle. Delalande” mentioned on motet scores from around 1689, and Delalande’s two daughters are known to have sung in the chapel after 1703. The dessus (soprano) part was more typically sung by boys (pages or petits clercs), falsettists (faussets), or castratos. Cardinal Mazarin imported castratos from Italy around 1660. There were eleven dessus italiens (sopranistes, castrats, châtres) active in the late 1600s in chapel choirs and operas.
Members of the Chambre, the Écurie, and the Chapelle passed freely from one group to another, and performances by combined groups were common, especially for such ceremonies as coronations, royal births and deaths, and the celebrations surrounding royal marriages.
The Sainte-Chapelle and Notre-Dame Cathedral were two of the largest and most prestigious musical establishments in Paris outside the royal purview. In the late seventeenth century, the choir school of the Sainte-Chapelle numbered five to eight chaplains, six to twelve clerics, and eight choirboys. Extra singers and instrumentalists were engaged for exceptional occasions; the musicians were grouped on two opposite sides of the upper chapel, on platforms specially erected.12
The French opera chorus from Jean-Baptiste Lully to Jean-Philippe Rameau divided into a petit choeur, composed only of solo voices, and a grand choeur of many voices. Women sang soprano; men sang haute-contre, tenor, and bass. In the 1670s, the earliest days of the Académie d’Opéra, the chorus numbered fifteen; by 1713 the chorus of the Académie Royale de Musique included twenty-two men and twelve women.13 The French haute-contre was not a falsetto voice, but a high, light tenor.14 If even one of your tenors is comfortable at the high end of the range, you can have him sing haute-contre with your female altos and his voice will add a bit of “ping” to the sound of the section.
Part music for domestic use and simple music for private devotions, such as Huguenot metrical psalms, might be sung or played by any family members on a variety of soft chamber instruments. (Jean Calvin’s proscription of musical instruments in public worship did not apply to music in the home; as early as 1554, Louis Bourgeois, Calvin’s own choirmaster, published settings of Genevan psalms “bien consonante aux instrumentz musicaulx.”)
CONDUCTING
It was exceptional for the leader of a seventeenth-century musical ensemble to do nothing but beat time, because it was exceptional to deploy such large numbers of performers that a centrally placed, highly visible conductor was necessary. (On the infamous occasion when Lully dealt himself a fatal wound while beating time, he was conducting more than 150 musicians in his Te Deum.15) For ordinary purposes, keeping the ensemble together could readily be accomplished by any reliable and experienced member whose vocal or instrumental role positioned him so that all could see him. A duple division of the pulse was signaled by a simple down and up; for a triple division, the downstroke occupied twice as much time as the upstroke. A singer used his hand, or a stick (token of the ancient precentor’s staff) or a roll of paper or parchment. Instrumental players used the same body language they do today: the player of a bowed stringed instrument used the bow; a theorbo or archlute player moved the neck of the instrument down and up; continuo keyboard players could free one hand when needed or use eyebrows, shoulders, or torso to emphasize the pulse. Whether the choirmaster performed the task himself or delegated it undoubtedly varied with the familiarity of the music, the day of the week, the expected presence of important guests in the audience or congregation, and a host of other imponderables. The present-day early-music director is ideally situated to delegate the leading (while retaining the artistic direction) of some ensembles, which will tend to raise everyone’s commitment to the artistic success of the performance.
PRINCIPAL SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLISH
AND FRENCH SINGING TREATISES
Bénigne de Bacilly’s Remarques curieuses sur l’art de bien chanter (1668) provides a window on singing and vocal pedagogy in seventeenth-century France. Though the author’s expressed main purpose was to deal with the esoterica of applying quantitative rhythm to French poetry, over half the book is devoted to general principles of good singing.
John Playford’s An Introduction to the Skill of Musick contains, in editions of 1664 and later, a “Brief Discourse of the Italian Manner of Singing,” much of it lifted from Giulio Caccini’s Le nuove musiche (1602). Playford’s handbook went through nineteen editions, many thoroughly revised, spanning the years 1654 to 1730, so we may surmise that Caccini’s advice on singing—attributed by Playford to “an English Gentleman who had lived long in Italy”—remained pertinent as the decades and the editions passed.
Pier Francesco Tosi’s Opinioni de’ cantori (1723) distilled a lifetime of experience as a successful professional singer and teacher. It was translated into several languages; the English translation, John Galliard’s Observations on the Florid Song (1743), adds explanatory annotations and examples. Though Galliard was German, both his translation and his footnotes are in clearer English than Playford’s.16
HEALTHY SINGING
Good singing is an athletic pursuit. Just as with sports, aerobics, or jogging, the muscles that support the activity need to be methodically conditioned; once good condition is reached, it needs to be maintained. Then as now, the fit or well-conditioned singer can control pitch, manage the breath on long phrases, support a diminuendo as well as a crescendo, control vibrato, deliver rapid passagework articulately—in short, can handle the purely technical skills that Baroque music demands.
Bacilly, Playford, and Galliard all agree on the fundamentals: good posture, good breathing, and plenty of hours of practice, beginning with simple exercises and progressing to more challenging ones. You, as the director of a choir or vocal ensemble, need to know enough about vocal fitness to spot unhealthy singing and suggest ways to correct it, as well as to teach the fundamentals of good singing right along with the notes and the pronunciation. The best way to learn about good singing is to study with a good teacher. The collegium director who comes to his or her position from an instrumental background should take very seriously the obligation to handle young singers’ voices intelligently. Often you only need one or two lessons yourself from a sympathetic colleague to get you started on a visceral—as opposed to a merely aural—understanding of good singing. Or you might have a “guest coach” for one or two rehearsals with your singers, concentrating on basic technique, with you singing right along with your students.
Bacilly says that while no teacher can make a beautiful voice out of thin air, nevertheless,
What can be accomplished is in the realm of vocal corrections: The voice can be brought out more, where it previously was muffled. Continuous practice can make a rough voice delicate, correct bad intonation, and make a coarse voice sweet…A good voice…is effective because of its vigor, strength, and its capacity to sing with expression, which is the soul of vocal art.17
Vocalizing in the falsetto voice is a useful practice for all singers, and you will not harm the voices of men in your ensemble by having them do easy vocal exercises in falsetto in the octave above middle C (c'). Descending scales that bring the falsetto down into the mid-tenor range are useful not only for exercising the falsetto, but also for developing more ease and more resonance in the high end of the chest voice. In the process, you might discover a particularly beautiful falsetto tone in one or another of the men, a potential countertenor for English repertory.
IMPORTANCE OF TEXT
Good singing is also an artistic pursuit. The technical skills of the singer need to be brought to bear on the expression of the text (“the soul of the vocal art”) in ways that complement and enhance the mere notes on the page.
Vocal and choral music in the seventeenth century are text centered. This may seem obvious, but it bears repeating. The ensemble director should understand the literal meaning of every word of text in the program, as well as any metaphoric or symbolic baggage carried by the text. The singers should learn the meaning of every word they are singing from the very start. The director should know the correct pronunciation of every word, so that rehearsal time is not wasted. And he or she should provide the audience with both the original text and the translation in parallel.
Beyond good pronunciation, all subtleties of expressive singing—dynamic contrast, phrasing, variety of articulation, added embellishment—should be rooted in the performers’ comprehension of the text.
Thomas Morley grumbled that “Most of our churchmen, so they can cry louder in the choir than their fellows, care for no more; whereas by the contrary they ought to study how to vowel and sing clean, expressing their words with devotion and passion.”18
Marin Mersenne agreed:
One of the great perfections of song consists of good pronunciation of the words and rendering them so distinctly that the auditors do not lose a single syllable…The voice should be softened or reinforced on certain syllables to express the passions of the subject.19
Bacilly, Playford, and Dowland, translating Ornithoparcus,20 all make similar statements, telling us explicitly that the text was paramount in the seventeenth century and implicitly that performers needed frequent reminders of this basic truth.
HISTORICAL PRONUNCIATIONS
There have been some recent investigations into historical national pronunciations.21 There are also recordings—the Hilliard Ensemble’s recording of Thomas Tallis’s Lamentations of Jeremiah,22 for example, or Les Arts Florissants’ recording of Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s Le reniement de St. Pierre23—that provide aural models. Indeed, this is an area of performance-practice research that is far better communicated by sound media than on the printed page. Historical pronunciations can make startling differences in vowel sound and line articulation. They may help us achieve a closer approximation to the sounds the composer expected to hear—if we can correctly calculate regional variants, variants over time, and the wildcard effects of, say, a French choirmaster’s having studied in Italy. While historical pronunciations can add distinction to a performance, they should have a lower priority in your budgeting of rehearsal time than well-matched vowels and clear, precise consonants.
ORNAMENTATION
Ornamentation has two functions in Baroque singing: to enhance the affect of the text, and to display the accomplishments—the good taste and the virtuosity—of the singer. Bacilly, Playford, and Galliard all devote considerable attention to ornamentation. The myriad embellishments (Bacilly spends nearly eighteen pages on ports de voix alone) and the conflicting nomenclature in different traditions can be overwhelming at first; it is a good idea to use ornaments sparingly until you have spent some time familiarizing yourself with the examples and practicing them. Ornaments should be used in ensemble singing, especially in an opera scene or dialogue where distinct characters join in song. But if your singers do not yet have the technique—if they cannot handily deliver an extended trill or rapid diminutions—do not require it. The result will be the opposite of stylish Baroque ornamentation, labored instead of apparently effortless, planned instead of extemporized, worrisome instead of joyful. In time, with good models to emulate (recordings, if not you yourself), those singers with an improvisatory bent will emerge as leaders in the game and others will be emboldened to follow them.
Where there are several singers on the same part, added embellishment is rarely appropriate—excepting routine cadential ornaments that lend themselves to group execution (appoggiaturas, for example, are easier than trills to coordinate). Galliard goes so far as to say, “All Compositions for more than one Voice ought to be sung strictly as they are written; nor do they require any other Art but a noble Simplicity.”24
There is a useful rule of thumb for Baroque music that says that one never does anything exactly the same way twice in a row. If a musical phrase is repeated exactly, with the same text, the second appearance should be louder, or softer, or more embellished, or less embellished (senza vibrato the first time and con vibrato the second is an effective contrast), or more emphatic, or more reflective—and the director’s interpretation of the text will determine those choices. In ensemble singing, variation on repetition can also be achieved simply by allowing a different voice to emerge in the foreground.
This rule of thumb has a corollary that says that second and successive stanzas in strophic works, and reprises in da capo arias, should be embellished, not sung exactly the same way over again.
The two most popular styles of Baroque ornamentation, Italian and French, are described elsewhere in this volume. English music was mainly under Italian influence in the first half of the seventeenth century; the Restoration of the monarchy (1660) brought a wave of French influence, since Charles II had spent his exile at the French court; then, toward the end of the century (beginning in the 1680s), the French vogue was tempered by a return of Italian influence. Decisions about ornamentation must take this into account.
VIBRATO, ONE KIND OF ORNAMENT
Vibrato was viewed as an embellishment in Baroque music. Its use and misuse in early music has become a highly charged topic, still capable of eliciting raised voices in otherwise polite discussions. Suffice it to say that for vocal music of the seventeenth century, an unvarying straight tone is as inappropriate as an unvarying vibrato.
One needs to remember that the rich vibrato now cultivated in most vocal studios and heard in most concert-hall singing is a direct result of the need for loudness, to stand out against large orchestras of modern instruments and to fill large halls. Contrast in your imagination the singing of a professional “classical” singer with the singing of a professional jazz vocalist. Why is the jazz voice so much more agile and flexible, how does it produce such an array of vocal colors? Quite simply, because the microphone takes care of loudness, leaving the singer free to explore a wider palette of expression. Jazz singing also provides examples of the use of vibrato as an expressive device, to say nothing of examples of improvised embellishment on reprises and second stanzas.
Encourage your singers to experiment with focused, well-supported singing that is not loud. Be clear on the fact that a straight tone requires more support, not less. Try to find performance venues for chamber music that are appropriately intimate. In small ensembles, where each singer is expected to display some individuality as well as some subordination to the artistic whole, vibrato is out of place only if (1) it interferes with intonation, (2) contradicts the affect of the text, or (3) never goes away.
DISPOSITION, OR THE EXECUTION OF RAPID PASSAGEWORK
Bacilly says that the art of good singing depends on three gifts of nature, each distinct from the others: the voice, the disposition, and the ear or the intelligence.25 Present-day teachers will readily recognize the first and third of these gifts, and they might assume that the second refers to the singer’s emotional health. But that is not what Bacilly had in mind, nor did Galliard, when he counseled the would-be teacher to listen “with a disinterested Ear, whether the Person desirous to learn hath a Voice, and a Disposition.”26
Dispositione di voce in fact refers quite specifically to a particular method of performing rapid passagework, and despite Bacilly’s opinion that it is a gift of nature, earlier writers on vocal technique describe it as a skill that can be learned. It is a skill that choral singers and solo singers alike need to master; and because the technique used in the seventeenth century differs from that taught today, a few references to this topic follow. Galiver (“Cantare”) explored late sixteenth-century descriptions of modo di cantare con la gorga (the method of singing with the throat). Robert Greenlee (“Dispositione”) gathered descriptive references from nearly a dozen writers, from Maffei (1562) to Mersenne (1636), indicating that buona dispositione refers to the proficient use of some kind of throat articulation to produce extremely rapid diminutions or passaggi without any sacrifice of pitch accuracy.
Sherman and Brown (“Singing Passaggi”) conducted controlled observations of four different methods for rapid articulation, using microphone and electroglottographic waveforms, airflow waveforms, and video laryngoscopy. Their conclusion is that glottal articulation better reproduces the speed, clarity, and separation of notes admired by Renaissance and Baroque writers than any of the other three methods (mentally reproducing the vowel, abdominal/diaphragmatic pulsation, or adjusting the vibrato rate to coincide with the tempo of the diminutions). They address the distinction between glottal attack, which can be damaging to the voice, and glottal articulation, in which “the breath flow must be gentle and steady, and abdominal musculature should remain relatively relaxed.”27
Playford, admiring the ability of a particular singer in executing trills very exactly, inquired of him how he practiced. The singer replied,
I used at my first learning the Trill, to imitate that breaking of a Sound in the Throat which Men use when they Lure their Hawks, as He/he/he/he/he’; which he used slow at first, and after more swift on several Notes, higher and lower in sound, till he became perfect therein.28
Similarly, Sherman proposes using laughter as a springboard in teaching glottal articulation and finds that even inexperienced amateur singers rapidly improve in their ability to sing long runs of allegro sixteenth notes cleanly.
CONCLUSION
All modern performances of early music represent a series of compromises. Even the most historically informed, scholarly, and dedicated choral director is unlikely to hide his or her performers behind a screen, for example, or require singers to learn all their music by solmization in the old hexachord system, or forgo certain repertory altogether for lack of boy trebles. Musicians who are committed to historically informed performance must strike a balance between historical accuracy and an artistically satisfying performance; and the balance may shift with every piece of music on the program. Directors of student ensembles, understandably, will also place a priority on the education of the performers themselves, which introduces yet another set of compromises. To be conscious of the compromises you make and to articulate them clearly for your students and your audiences is one of the most important aspects of the art of the ensemble director.
NOTES
1. Holman, Four and Twenty: 389; Burney, History II: 347.
2. Matthew Locke, The Present Practice of Music Vindicated: 19; quoted in Holman, Four and Twenty: 394.
3. Caldwell, Oxford History I: 515.
4. Musica Brittanica: vol. 64, xxix.
5. Holman, Four and Twenty: 389–399.
6. More detailed and comprehensive information about numbers and kinds of musicians can be found in Ashbee, Records, of which volumes 1–5 cover the reigns of the Stuart dynasty (James I through the death of Queen Anne in 1714).
7. Holman, Four and Twenty: 395–398.
8. Woodfill, Musicians: xxix.
9. Caldwell, Oxford History I: 553.
10. Ibid.: 565.
11. The bass cromorne is not a crumhorn, but an instrument related to the bassoon. See Herbert Myers’s chapter on woodwinds in this volume.
12. Cessac, Charpentier: 364–369.
13. Anthony, French Baroque: 90–91.
14. Zaslaw, Enigma.
15. New Grove: Lully.
16. Tosi’s ideas on singing are described in Julianne Baird’s chapter on solo vocal style in this volume.
17. Bacilly, Remarques (trans. Caswell): 20
18. Morley, Plaine and Easie: 20.
19. MacClintock, Readings: 173–174.
20. Ibid.: 160–161.
21. Duffin, “National Pronunciations”; Copeman, Singing in Latin; McGee, Singing, covers Latin and other languages and includes a CD recording, but it does not go beyond the very early years of the seventeenth century.
22. ECM Germany CD 833308–2.
23. Harmonia Mundi C 5151.
24. Galliard, Observations: 150.
25. Bacilly, Remarques (trans. Caswell): 18.
26. Galliard, Observations: 14.
27. Sherman/Brown, “Singing Passaggi”: 33.
28. Playford, Briefe Introduction: 94.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Anthony, French Baroque; Ashbee, Record; Bacilly, Commentary; Benoit, Versailles; Bianconi, Seventeenth Century; Blow, Anthems; Brown/Sadie, Performance Practice; Burney, History; Caccini, Nuove musiche; Caldwell, Oxford History I; Carter, “Shape”; Cessac, Charpentier; Copeman, Singing in Latin; Duffin, “National Pronunciations”; Gable, “Some Observations”; Galiver, “Cantare”; Galliard, Observations; Greenlee, Dispositione; Holman, Four and Twenty; MacClintock, Readings; McGee, Singing; Mersenne, Harmonie universelle; Monson, “Voices”; Morehen, “English Consort”; Morley, Introduction; Playford, Introduction; Rosow, “Performing”; Sawkins, “For and Against”; Sherman/Brown, “Singing Passaggi”; Spink, English Song; Tosi, Opinioni; Woodfill, Musicians; Zaslaw, “Enigma.”