This is a guest post by Jessica Ozon from W2024. Her plan was to write a work for choir and organ, and she started by doing research on works for this medium, looking to see what other composers have done, and perhaps finding some useable/inspiring ideas along the way.
She included many links, so please check these out if you have a chance!
Thanks, Jessica!
Some research/thoughts/questions for my organ and choir composition:
Lots of french organists of the 20th century were excellent improvisers because they considered this a very important skill. Some of Messiaen’s compositional techniques can also be heard in his improvising. https://youtu.be/SY7g0ULVl2I?si=zIlzLbCsP5uAr9S1 I think this is why many French composers like Messiaen, Dupre, and Duruflé have an improvisatory quality to a lot of their music.
Tournemire and Liszt - using chant to inform solo instrumental music, however, one is intended as a concert piece while the other is for liturgical use. How does this affect the way they express the meaning of the text without words?
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLU2mmgpI3EopTB1sCxZX5Ujg_clTssl6P&si=a09Q9CLIIY34ZTUl
Messiaen again: https://youtu.be/x0__tgrjTkc?si=6yhrJo6IWpI34pbo O Sacrum Convivium is a very early Messian piece, and the only work he ever published for liturgical use, although much of his work had religious themes. Both musical similarities and differences exist between this and his later organ music. Messiaen’s music really plays with time in an interesting way, which probably had implications for its spiritual/meditative quality. Notice the incredibly slow sections juxtaposed with incredibly lively passages in the organ work, and the unusually slow pace in the choral work
https://youtu.be/-0QqEbWubcQ?si=5I7e-TcYQpnxmjYY
Durufle: I plan on setting the same text used here, I think it’s very beautiful and the chant has a simple, recognizable melody that makes it more accessible. I also think it shows some of the value in retaining use of Latin in music as Duruflé and Messiaen have done; “caritas” can translate to either “charity” or “love” yet does not exactly mean either of these things, and the exact meaning is thus lost in translations of this text. I think the consideration of the particular text being used for choral compositions is very important as small details such as this may change what we want to convey in the music.
Durufle tries to maintain the feeling of plainchant in this piece, with the harmony simply embellishing on the main melody. I want to explore other ways of doing this with a less traditionally tonal sound.
https://youtu.be/qJDH186eGZg?si=YfJuuazFVlsR2UnW
This is awesome, and shows some beautiful and unconventional ways of using the organ. Saariaho is great in general at showing new ways of creating expression and meaning in music, outside of the typical idioms used for these instruments.
https://youtu.be/-ndaiPGDFaU?si=QvPJ_6pZEgtKHMKr
Other composes to explore: Many English composers in the 20th century like Vaughn Williams and his contemporaries wrote organ and choral music, though not much of it can be called post-tonal. Nonetheless I think there’s interesting and uniquely modern harmonies to explore in works by these people, as well as learning from the “classical canon” composers who wrote for choir or organ, like Bach, Rachmaninov’s All-Night Vespers, etc.
Some more listening:
https://youtu.be/wbLcI9-Js0U?si=sE0O-n9Q62HUhjVz
https://youtu.be/vAUkPFqEc2c?si=zd84SGoGj9LmXKH0
https://youtu.be/0G41KmDsN5s?si=W5su73Xv3W6Il6sJ
https://youtu.be/Qm7D_nRtHPg?si=aVYbCYTS2J93bgXZ
https://youtu.be/t7Oxd6z2aDU?si=aFhMUBJfYi6mccok
To conclude: Organ repertoire and choral repertoire are both very varied. I think it’s near impossible to separate these mediums from the religious traditions they’ve been apart of, so it’s important to consider how composers in the past have expressed particular themes/emotions when writing for them. Much of the music above shows different ways of using time, timbre and register to create different effects and convey the meaning of texts. Composers also choose different methods of making their music suitable for different settings, whether that be a concert or for a church service of some kind.
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