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The Radio 3 Boards > The Radio 3 Boards > Radio 3 Specialist Programmes > New Music > Vocal Ensemble Works
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Author Topic: Vocal Ensemble Works  (Read 1237 times)
Ian Pace
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« Reply #15 on: 20:04:50, 25-02-2007 »
Quote from: aaron cassidy on 19:52:10, 25-02-2007
all I can ever hear is NVS, never the pieces themselves. 

Errrrrrrrrrrrrr - the assumptions behind that statement might be questioned by more than a few! Wink
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'These acts of keeping politics out of music, however, do not prevent musicology from being a political act . . .they assure that every apolitical act assumes a greater political immediacy' - Philip Bohlman, 'Musicology as a Political Act'
aaron cassidy
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« Reply #16 on: 20:24:37, 25-02-2007 »
Well you do know what I mean, I think.  NVS certainly (!) aren't the only ensemble guilty of this, but I find it particularly overwhelming in their case, resulting I think from their method of vocal production (a combination of what is for me a hugely excessive amount of vibrato with a real need to make everything theatrical!!).
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Evan Johnson
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« Reply #17 on: 20:28:49, 25-02-2007 »
Quote from: aaron cassidy on 20:24:37, 25-02-2007
Well you do know what I mean, I think.  NVS certainly (!) aren't the only ensemble guilty of this, but I find it particularly overwhelming in their case, resulting I think from their method of vocal production (a combination of what is for me a hugely excessive amount of vibrato with a real need to make everything theatrical!!).

Or, as I like to put it, they may be new, and they may be vocal, but they are first and foremost soloists.

That having been said, I do think that their contribution to Shadowtime (both live in New York and on disc), which is the most recent context in which I've heard them, is extremely well done, and not over the top (except where it's called for!)
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aaron cassidy
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« Reply #18 on: 20:53:07, 25-02-2007 »
Quote from: Evan Johnson on 20:28:49, 25-02-2007
Or, as I like to put it, they may be new, and they may be vocal, but they are first and foremost soloists.

 Cheesy

Very, very funny, Evan.


That said ... I also know that James takes the "Vocal Ensemble" part of EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble quite seriously.  Dr. Weeks can correct me if I'm wrong, but EXAUDI, too, think of themselves as an ensemble of soloists (and not, say, as a choir), but their approach is quite different (and due not simply to the preference toward a more focused, straight-tone(-ish) sound).
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oliver sudden
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« Reply #19 on: 22:06:52, 25-02-2007 »
At least he didn't say that they're first and foremost Stuttgarters. Undecided
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time_is_now
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« Reply #20 on: 10:59:17, 26-02-2007 »
Bisch d' en stuagat gwä, Ollie?!  Wink
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jamesweeks
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« Reply #21 on: 16:35:26, 26-02-2007 »
Hello everyone

Well, I'm not going to get into an argument about NVS  Wink though Aaron is right to say that I think of EXAUDI as soloists but as consort singers too. I'm sure NVS would argue the same, it's just that the results are radically different because we have such different voices, and probably also a slightly different ingrained ethos about individualisation and indeed direction (i.e. leadership). All groups are very slightly different in that respect I think. And we haven't done that much repertoire that treats each singer as a different 'personality', which is something of a speciality for them.

I'm about to listen to their Stelae for Failed Time again (I too very much liked them in Shadowtime).

Thanks again for the recommendations. I have Dusapin's Semino but the score is basically illegible so I'm in no hurry to take it further. Has anyone heard his Granum Sinapis? Looks interesting on the page (settings of Meister Eckhart).

Tantris - Hyades is beautiful, a rather traditional set of nature pieces on one level (though in outer-space - sort of cosmic pastoralism) with a quasi-fragmentary text that evokes rather than means. Harmonically quite disparate - chromatic, quartertonal, white-note-mode etc, and texturally very varied one to the next. They're quite surprisingly clear, both formally and affectively. I hope we can do them in England soon.
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