Word: choraler
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...hear just how much further tall, slender Composer Mennin had advanced. In picking his symphonic form, he had tried something that even Beethoven had never attempted until he was past 50 and had eight great symphonies to his credit. Mennin's Fourth, "The Cycle," was an ambitious choral symphony in which he worked out the chorus in all three movements instead of just the last (as Beethoven did in his Ninth). Said Mennin: "I know a piece that takes so many performers is impractical, but I wanted to write it anyway...
Last Friday and Saturday, as a warmup for the Bach Mass, the Glee Club and Choral Society joined forces with Leonard Bernstein and the Boston Symphony in a powerful and awe-inspiring performance of Mahler's Symphony in C minor...
This symphony, like Beethoven's Ninth, is unique because its choral movement is so gigantic it usually overshadows the other movements. That was certainly the case last weekend. The Orchestra faithfully pledged through the first three movements. There were occasional groans from the audience when one of the brass players (hired specially to meet the requirements of Mahler's bloated score) went berserk. But starting with Nan Mcrriman's contralto solo in the fourth movement, things began to pick up, and by the time the Finale came along, everyone had forgotten the preceding movements...
Soloists, orchestra, and all 300 members of the Glee Club and Choral Society deserved every bit of it. They did everything that Koussevitzky told them to do, and since he was the boss, that is the highest praise they could be given...
...course, the number of performers ruled out any possibility for delicate treatment in choral passages. The Mass can be as effective in mightiness as in subtlety, however, if the chorus is well enough trained to execute cleanly the variations in volume derived from the counterpoint itself. The Glee Club and Choral Society were. After the some-what uninspired reading of the Kyrie, in which lone syllables appeared and vanished with no apparent intention, the Chorus climbed to heights of accuracy and cooperation in the Gloria. The "Qui Tollis" was an achievement which is impossible to describe, and the transition without...