Word: davisone
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...felt that "Good singing is impossible without unremitting attention to small details, heartlessly but tactfully insisted upon," but never forgot that "it is the rehearsal, and not the concert, that most often spells adventure." Frederick Lewis Allen described a typical Davison rehearsal: "You hear, cutting through the deep, swelling tones of the chorus, Daivson's sharp voice: 'Now's your chance! That's it! Good! First rate! This is a bad place; look out for it! That's the way basses! Eyes! Eyes...
...very flaws of the Glee Club's performances were directly related to Davison's predominantly educational aims. The club grew from 75 to 250 because he wanted to allow as many as possible to take part in it; to accommodate as many as possible and blend voices of varying qualities, he sought "a homogeneous mediocrity of tone." Such tone was not in itself a flaw of the group; but since it often resulted in an imbalance of bases, only restraint could compensate for their greater volume, and several sympathetic reviewers, including Olin Downes of the New York Times, remarked about...
During his years with the Glee Club, Davison began arranging, teaching and writing and in 1934 retired from his conducting duties to devote his full time to this work. Although he believed that mixed voices were infinitely preferable to a men's chorus, he nonetheless "tortured" the means "to justify the end" and made over 300 arrangements for men's voices that gave them access to a much wider repertoire. His "Concord Series" song books have had unparalleled usage in schools and homes both here and abroad. The number of distinguished musicians who trained at Harvard and thus felt...
...Davison expressed his character, ideals and aims probably best in his books on the state of American music. One work, Choral Conducting, is full of the shrewd, tactful stratagems he used to command the complete loyalty of his singers. Music Education in America, written in 1926, assaulted many of the pet notions of the public and the musical professions: he ridiculed sight-reading and compulsory piano lessons for young children and derided the idea that music was best taught by drill, when drill presented discipline and not understanding...
Church Music (1952), best displays what Davison called his "gift of invective," for its lucid, often deliciously polemical style projects well-defined standards for sacred music that are based on a very clear idea of the role of music in worship. Davison minces no words in describing the devotional habits and musical ideas of the average layman and concludes that "our churches are literally asylums for the harboring of the great army of the apostles of musical mediocrity...