You’d think that naming the “bestest choral piece ever written ever” would be a subjective matter. Well, I’m here to tell you that it’s not; this is nothing short of hard science. If you disagree with me, it’s because you’re wrong. Sorry.

German joke time – Johann Sebastian Bach was a “sechs” maniac. He wrote six (sechs) Brandenburg concertos, six English suites, six French suites, six organ trios, six violin suites, six cello suites, six flute sonatas, (the list goes on …), and six motets. Joking aside, it is said that this is an homage to God’s making the world in six days and resting on the seventh – Bach wouldn’t presume God-like perfection by writing a seventh concerto, suite, motet, etc. Little did he know that he actually had achieved God-like perfection in practically every note he penned.

The motets were mostly written as funeral pieces. When a person died, Bach’s choir of St. Thomas church would gather outside the home of the deceased and sing a motet before the body was processed to the church for the funeral service. This motet is written for two 4-voice choirs, and is a tour-de-force of what styles were expected of a baroque composer and what the baroque voice was expected to do. This stuff is exceedingly difficult (but fun) to sing; the writing is simply amazing. A quick outline:

• 0:00 a vocal courante, sung antiphonally between the two choirs
• 2:17 one choir begins singing a fugue, accompanied by the other’s choirs continued courante
• eventually the other choir joins in on the fugue – both choir simultaneously sings the fugue AND the dance
• 4:40 a vocal chorale prelude – one choir sings a hymn, while the other provides commentary
• 8:40 another vocal antiphonal dance, this time a bourrée
• and because that’s never enough for Bach, at 10:07, a marvelous fugue which both choirs sing together

Sing this at my funeral, please.

A while ago I wrote a post praising the music of Daniel Dorff – Dorff has composed music for a number of children’s tales for narrator and chamber orchestra. My kids simply adore the pieces, and love to listen to them in the car. More importantly, I adore the pieces because they are fun to hear and aren’t the typical “check your brain at the door” children’s music which quite frankly is the bane of my existence.

After spending many hours in the car with my two kids this summer, I want to take a few posts to highlight some of the music which has made those journeys a bit more enjoyable. Along with the Dorff CD, Bridge Records also has released a CD of the music of Stefan Wolpe which has another of our favorite musical tales. The story is similar to Pete Seeger‘s “Abiyoyo”, but the music is infinitely more interesting. Seeger’s tale is essentially two phrases of music that repeat ad nauseam. Wolpe, on the other hand, has written a 20-minute tone poem / opera. The narrator speaks the story while the piano paints the pictures; the characters have their own short arias; there are musical leitmotifs; the piano score is not simple – modern, but playful.

I think we adults are often foolish in believing that children are incapable of understanding or enjoying complex things. It’s a disservice to them to expose them only to Barney songs, rather than music that they can continue to enjoy now as well as when they are old and gray. So when the kids are whiny, put this on and everyone will be a little bit happier.

You might have had this discussion with a number of friends – if you could transport yourself to a different era, which would you choose? Which would you avoid? It’s all a game, but good party conversation.

I’m drawn to the explosion of musical achievement in the mid-to-late 19th century – the blossoming of German opera, the evolution of the tone poem. I’d stay away from the Enlightenment. And then there’s the 1910’s, leading up to the outbreak of World War I. I wish I could watch the events of that decade from a safe spot – sort of like watching a shark’s feeding frenzy from a steel cage. It’s completely fascinating, and equally scary.

The world had become modern and much more complex. Romantic sensibilities were shunned. The individual as a hero with a purpose was traded for the absurdity of existence in an human insect-hive. Would any of the “old ways” be relevant in the 20th century?

In the same way that militaries were rushing to be technologically one-step ahead of their enemies, artists were pushing boundaries to the extreme. The term avant-garde means just this – the “advance soldiers” who are doing the riskiest work, but with the greatest promise of reward (if they are successful).

The Austrian musical military was the Second Viennese School, who had created a new musical technology which was years ahead of France and Italy (and decades ahead of England, Russia, and the US). To oversimplify, the old tried-and-true approach to tonality was abandoned, and a new system of organization put into place. If you’ve never heard atonal music before, you might find it difficult to listen to – but if you are able to approach it with an open mind, you might find it quite beautiful, but in very different ways from tonal music. (side note – today’s piece is pretty tame as far as atonality goes …)

Alban Berg (arguably the best composer of the Second Viennese School, though not as famous its founder, Arnold Schoenberg) wrote a set of songs for orchestra and voice in 1911 (the same year as the Rite of Spring). When they were premiered, the audience began to riot – but this was fairly normal for this decade (again, see the Rite.) I would love to have been there – but inside inside a steel cage with bullet-proof glass, of course.