Word: modal
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...program was The Last Words of David by Randall Thompson '20, in his own arrangement for men's voices. Mastery of the chorus has made Thompson the most popular choral composer in the United States. The Last Words of David is a typical work, concentrating on simplicity and using modal harmonies. The style, however, is a little too conscious of choral effect. The European list singers contributed some fine singing in the Thompson chorus and were even better in Dvorak's Magdlein im Walde. Conductor G. Wallace Woodworth was in his stylistic element and led this pleasant piece...
...modernistic tone. Although the effects are flashy, they are never offensive. In lieu of sets, Mr. Mielziner may have as many as three clashing colors splashed on stage at one time, but he never distracts attention from the players. Leonard Bernstein's incidental choral music, of which much is modal, seems equally impressive...
...contemporary works. The composer's most obvious asset is his sense of musical balance and proportion. Scoring for three equal instruments imposes severe demands on such ability, and if Mr. Akustin does not always succeed artistically the pieces are at least short enough to avoid monotony. As in the Modal Canons, his fascination with problems in counterpoint tends to exclude (or avoid) those of expression. But with such technical competence, perhaps he will produce a more personal work in the near future...
More conservative and immediately accessible are John Austin's Four Modal Canons. Scored for two violins and viola, they follow the old principle of the "round": one viola leads off and the others enter later playing exactly the same notes. The limitations are obvious; all variety must proceed from harmonies produced by the passage of voices and from little imitative figures as each enters. Austin's first canon produces lovely sonorities and a mood of serenity that help sustain its length. In the second, however, parts too closely spaced give the effect of tedious repetition. Although the others are better...
...inherently unsuited for religious music, but their operatic association have certainly made them so for me. Even Mozart did not fare well in such company, perhaps because the firmly established tonalities of his Ave Verum Corpus seemed restrictive and sentimental when placed next to the more highly flexible modal style. A group of chansons by Debussy, however, by no means conveyed this sense of restriction. Set to poems by Charles D'Orleans, a medieval courtier-poet, the chansons caught the naivete, humor, as well as the basically tragic outlook which characterizes much of the courtly literature. The only contemporary works...