The Fredösphere

Lately I've been hearing the words of the angel "I bring you tidings of great joy" in strong, phat, masculine, sustaaaaaained chords in close voicings. I hear a men's choir bellowing in that comfortably high area of the voice that is so satisfying to sing in and listen to. I wanted to hear male voices sing "Glory to God in the Highest" and hear them land on an A-major triad on the word "highest." I asked my friend Aaron for suggestions that fit that description and his reaction was what I expected: "that's usually for women's voices." Yes. Scored for women, and usually with plenty of flouncy bounce. I think we have discovered a cliché, and when we discover them, what do we do? We smash them.

Not finding what I wanted in the existing repertoire, I considered writing something myself. But I was running out of time. Should I compromise and pick something ordinary? I received a sign, a word straight from the pulpit when the preacher of last Sunday's sermon urged us to consider the implications of that first command: "fear not!" Perhaps the sheperds were ordered to stop being afraid because they were in the presence of something legitimately frightening. Perhaps these angles were warrior angels. We were asked to imagine a Rambo angel, or an Ah-nold angel. Yes. I can do that.

Which brings me to one of my favorite adjectives: seraphic. A terribly underused word, I think. I wanted to hear an angelic choir purged of all things cherubic and binging on all things seraphic. (And now is time to mention the choir with my all-time favorite name: Seraphic Fire.)

Sunday night, I jotted down a few notes for the vocal parts and came up with a motif for the piano accompaniment. Monday night, starting at 9:30 p.m., I faced the necessity of starting from an empty Finale document, and creating in one shot an entire piece in one night. I much prefer a plodding pace and had never before faced that much pressure. The gamble paid off. By 1:00 a.m. I was done.

The piece is hardly perfect—a future revision would probably need to expand each section, and as you can see in the excerpt below I let slip an embarrassing parallelism—but it achieves all its mission-critical objectives. The men's choir I assembled for this piece obviously liked it. It was written very much for the purpose of being a blast to sing, and that was evident in last night's rehearsal. I gambled that my tenors, none of whom are true first tenors, would not be worn out by the several sustained high-Gs. I was elated when they rose to the challenge. (Alan: you're a star!) Lots of high Gs, but no high As: by long, bitter experience I've learned to live with limitations.

If you've ever sung in a men's choir, look at this part (in 6/8 with 60 bpm), then tell me honestly: wouldn't you love to bellow away at this phrase? Be honest. This is what men singers live for, no?

Labels: Choral, Composition