Word: choirful
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...boys were up for irreversible commitments. And luckily, they did not need to be. Some of Europe's most prestigious church choirs offered fame to the anatomically-intact. The Vienna Choir Boys, for instance, would train boys between the ages of 10 and 14 to sing with a sublime sweetness that was thought to rival the song of angels. Although we do not hear too much about the castrati today, boy choirs have retained their popularity. Last Friday, the Vienna Choir Boys, as witness to this popularity, came to Symphony Hall to celebrate their 500th anniversary...
...Vienna Choir Boys filed onstage in white sailor suits and bowl-shaped haircuts, the audience gasped and cooed. But these boys were more than pretty faces. They were poised to reverse any preconceptions about 10-year-old singers that we might have formed during our own disjointed renditions of The Twelve Days of Christmas and O Come All Ye Faithful in primary school. As the Vienna Choir Boys performed a sophisticated repertoire of Haydn, Isaak, Bruckner, Schubert, Salieri and Mozart, they brought fifth graders to rare musical heights. But while the concert was supposed to promote the talent of child...
...choir boys performed a concert that was technically rich, but spiritually empty. Those of us with even the most paltry choral experiences remember exhortations from former conductors to "Sing as if you mean it!" and "Look like you're enjoying yourself!" The premise is simple: if a choir is not engaged in what it is singing, an audience won't be either...
...despite their prodigious talent, such conviction was conspicuously absent from the concert. The choir boys opened with Haydn's Te Deum in C Major, a sparkling piece with a quick tempo assured to enliven the audience. While the Chorus Viennensis was robust and energetic (this was the older choir of supporting tenors and basses who rounded out the four-part treble scale), the Vienna Choir Boys sounded withered and disengaged. They found Haydn's notes, but groped for his meaning. The boys sang the first line, "We praise thee, O God!" ambivalence nearer to pity than...
Their second selection, Heinrich Isaak's Motet Virgo Prudentissima, seemed by contrast to start off with redemption. In a slower, more contemplative tempo, the choir boys looked ready to shine. Without being drowned out by the older choir, the sopranos and altos united in the production of haunting, luscious strains that, for a fleeting moment, transmogrified Symphony Hall into St. Peter's Basilica. But once the basses and tenors in the older choir joined in, the younger choir boys lost their nerve. This led to technical difficulty between the sopranos and basses. Ideally, their voice parts should have slid over...