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During Ensemble Performance 1324, we covered two very contrasting styles of music. Semester One
was the choir and orchestra performance of Tony Haynes’s Undream’d Shores; a work comprising
African and Asian style music, in an attempt to musically depict immigration in the modern world. In
Second Semester, the choir tackled repertoire for Holy Week from the Renaissance and early Baroque
period. Although the music from both semesters was very different, in terms of development, both
semesters involved similar aspects of ensemble singing that have helped my development as a singer
and musician.
Both sets of repertoire had specific styles that the choir needed to adapt to and, although at
first this proved a little difficult as I had not sung in these styles before, after having sung the pieces
for a few weeks I started to develop more of an understanding of what was required. In Semester One,
Undream’d Shores, demanded a lot of freedom and flexibility with the singing. Due to the nature of
the style, we were asked to abandon the choral setting and sing more freely. I found this one of the
hardest parts of the performance as I have sung chorally for a long time and am used to singing in that
style. However, for pieces such as ‘Mr Never Smile’, ‘I Live in the City’ where we had embody a
representative human ethos of discrimination and hardship, I gradually began to find this easier to
portray. Nonetheless, I feel escaping the classical style further would have conveyed these
characteristics more successfully. In Semester Two, the Crux Fidelis programme required refined
choral skills and the ability to create a pure and blended tone within the choir. A lot of the focus for
the choir was spent on stress placement of words in order emphasise text rather than beats of the bar.
For example, in Tallis’s ‘Lamentations of Jeremiah’ bar 131 has a stressed 4 th beat and bar 132 has an
unstressed 1st beat. I found this quite hard to adapt to originally as it felt slightly unnatural but after a
few weeks of similar patterns in other pieces I found the words fell more easily into that pattern.
Ensemble singing requires the ability to learn music quickly, not only in your own time but
also under the pressure of the rehearsal setting, when sight singing pieces for the first time.
Undream’d Shores had the added task of learning pieces off copy, such as ‘Elegua Chants’ and
‘Yemanya’. This was helped by organising to meet with other first years to memorise things. I found
that it was difficult to not be bound by the music, as we were told to, after having learned from sheet
music because I tend to use the music as a safety net. However, once the music was learned, I found it
refreshing to be able to move a little and add improvisation. I found it confusing when, the music was
changed or edited when Tony Haynes came to rehearse with us. To an extent this did help us with not
relying on the music but it made it more difficult to know what exactly was required of us. In the
Crux Fidelis programme, although we had the music to read from, the precision of learning came
from understanding where glottal stop and neutral vowels were suitably placed.
Both programmes involved development of listening skills which were manifested in different
areas. In Undream’d Shores, as we were singing without music for some pieces, including,
‘Yemanya’ which required staggered entries and ad. lib harmonies, we had to be listening to the other
parts around us. ‘Mr Never Smile’ and ‘Eleggua Chants’ had call and response passages, so the choir
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had to be ready when the trumpet or singer’s phrases, respectively, had finished. In ‘I Live in the City’
we had to create improvised city street sounds which at first, I was quite daunted by and I found it
difficult to think of and produce the sound, mostly due to an element of self-consciousness but after
the workshop we had on improvisation, I felt a lot more comfortable with improvising these sounds. I
would still feel a little daunted at the prospect of improvisation but not to the same level as before
singing this piece. Crux Fidelis needed concentration on other parts to hear entries and to stay in tune
without relying on equal temperament. I learnt that the problem with relying on this is that a piano’s
interval of a 5th is flatter than just temperament so it was important to keep the 5ths high. This helped
us stay at pitch and not finish flat in the pieces. Furthermore, we learned about terms such as
‘Haubtstimme’ meaning the main voice in a contrapuntal texture and ‘Nebenstimme’, meaning
accompanying voice. However, this was not always clear during the performance as, due to the large
amount of sopranos, often their part carried more than the others, despite it not being the main part.
Despite both programmes being musically different, there were significant overlaps of what I
improved upon, including stylisation, improving sight-reading and memorising skills and ensuring
that I was always listening to other parts of the ensemble. Ensemble performance has enabled me to
develop as singer and helped me to understand what is required of an ensemble, whether it is in
performance of current or more dated music.