Choral Music | Vocal Music - Encyclopedia Britannica

choral music, music sung by a choir with two or more voices assigned to each part. Choral music is necessarily polyphonal—i.e., consisting of two or more autonomous vocal lines. It has a long history in European church music.

Choral music ranks as one of several musical genres subject to misunderstanding because of false historical perspectives or misinterpretation caused by the confusion engendered by unsolved semantic problems. Choral, chorale, choir, and chorus stand in obvious relationship to one another and are in some respects used interchangeably when a body of singers, for example, is referred to as a choir, a chorus (Latin noun derived from the Greek word choros), or a chorale, which properly is a Lutheran hymn tune. The adjective choral may therefore be applied in a general way (choral music, choral technique) or in a specific way (such as Beethoven’s Choral Symphony and Choral Fantasia). The nouns chorale, choir, and chorus are frequently used as adjectives in such expressions as chorale prelude (“choral prelude” is incorrect), choir organ, or chorus part.

The definition of choral music has by circumstance and usage been forced to comprise a far wider area than a comparable definition of an instrumental genre. It is unusual, to say the least, to perform a symphony with only a single instrument to each part, even though the opposite has occasionally happened when a string quartet movement is played by the massed strings of an orchestra. Much music now performed by choirs, however, was originally intended for soloists; and, while the lack of historical authenticity may here be deplored, it is evident that a choral performance of a madrigal (equivalent to an orchestral performance of a string quartet movement) permits many amateur musicians to enjoy, as members of a team, music that might otherwise escape their knowledge.

If a choral performance of genres for several solo voices, such as the madrigal, ballett, villanella, and part-song, results in a more neutral sound and a less personal intensity of expression, it is nevertheless true that the reverse sometimes offers unsuspected advantages, as when a work written for choir alone is performed by a group of soloists. In certain cases the work may take on a new and enhanced aspect because each strand of melody within the texture carries a personal rather than a group expression.

In defining choral music, some attention should also be paid to the enormous variation in the size of choirs. A chamber choir need contain only a dozen voices, certainly not more than 20; whereas a choir assembled for the Handel Festivals in the 19th century or for the Berlioz concerts monstres in Paris during the same epoch, might have numbered thousands. Modern traces of such massive choral effects may be found in the Symphony No. 8 in E Flat Major (sometimes called Symphony of a Thousand) of the Austrian composer Gustav Mahler. This work calls for a large double choir and a separate boys’ choir, in addition to a large orchestra and eight soloists. On the other hand, numerous modern choral works, because of their difficulty and complexity, seem to have been composed with a chamber choir in mind, as in the case of Cinq rechants (1949) by the French composer Olivier Messiaen.

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If there is more than one voice to each part—i.e., to each line of polyphony (music of several voice parts) or strand of melody—the performance is choral, even though the actual sonority may not seem choral in the accepted sense until there are more than five or six voices to a part. Both types of singing may also coexist, since a choir may contain several capable soloists who may at certain points sing as a group without the choir or with the choir as a background. This feature is the choral equivalent of the orchestral concerto grosso, in which a small group of solo instruments alternate or combine with the main body of players. Examples of this may be found in choral music of all types and ages. The medieval rondeau was usually performed by a soloist who sang the verses, with a small choir for the refrain. When the mass became a vehicle for choral performance in the 15th century, the Christe Eleison, certain parts of the Gloria and the Credo, the Benedictus, and the Agnus Dei were frequently assigned to a group of soloists within the choir. The Eton Choirbook motets demand similar treatment since red and black text is used to differentiate between those sections intended for soloists and those for full choir. Comparable effects may be found in music written for special occasions, oratorios, verse anthems, and settings of the Passion.

Although choirs existed throughout Europe in the Middle Ages, their role was restricted to unison singing of plainchant. Polyphony was the exclusive preserve of soloists. This state of affairs was gradually modified for several reasons. Early forms of musical notation were not precise enough to allow choral performance of even the simplest two-part polyphony. As time went on, improved accuracy in notating pitch and time values permitted some degree of experiment in choral performance.

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Knowledge of the subtleties of mensural (precisely measured) music was at first the prerogative of a small number of initiates. The ordinary member of the plainchant choir, or schola, was not expected to understand the notation or to perform music using it. But the teaching of musical theory spread rapidly in the 14th century, and singers became better equipped and educated than they had been at any previous time. The ever-growing wealth of the church also acted to encourage choral performance, since abbeys, cathedrals, parish and collegiate churches, and court chapels vied with each other in the opulence and perfection of their choral establishments. Laws were passed enabling royal chapels to impress (that is, to seek out and enroll) eligible provincial choirboys for the great central establishments, and in consequence every boy was a soloist in his own right, just as were the countertenors, tenors, and basses. Finally, the rapidity with which composers took advantage of this situation, evolving new techniques and adapting old ones, created a tremendous surge of choral activity and composition, which the new art of music printing was to aid even further in the early years of the 16th century. From that time until the present, there has been no abatement of interest in choral music, which is performed at amateur and professional levels throughout the entire world.