Word: barbers
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...What Barber has here is a typical church choir, 18 or so voices, some by their own description small, some serviceable, with a few gorgeous ones folded in; four of them belong to paid section leaders, and the rest are volunteers. Most are under 40; they are suburban and modestly affluent. Many of them have come here from other denominations; they like the loftiness of Episcopal ritual -- what one of them terms "smells and bells...
...waft," Barber encourages, beginning to relish the sound...
...trick for Barber is to blend the changing cast and the varied talents into a unified voice. He drills them on breathing and on the peculiarities of sung pronunciation. At verse 9 of Psalm 37, he interjects, "This is my favorite: 'For evildoers shall be cut off. ' With a big t before the 'off.' Crisp as a knife." He is relentlessly attentive to the details that weave together the different parts: "Everybody, on the bottom of page 3, let's make that a dotted quarter note with an eighth rest, so we can hear the soprano entrance...
Buswell is unaccustomed to choral singing, and he drowns out everybody else. A few singers simply stop in the middle of a hymn, overwhelmed. Barber glares. Privately, he tells Buswell that he is even louder than the organ -- to no avail. Finally, at a Sunday rehearsal, Barber dresses Buswell down: "Look, your pianissimo is not our pianissimo. Turn it way down." In the hallway afterward, Buswell, abashed, tells the other singers, "I guess I really blew it in there...
...evensong for All Saints. On the big afternoon, they assemble for a final rehearsal. Nothing goes right. The choir's attempt at a Nunc Dimittis produces dissonance and glances of distress. Some heretic in the alto section sings "Holy Spirit" when everybody else is singing "Holy Ghost." Twice Barber loses his place...