April 14, 20178 yr A choir in NH was nice enough to send me the recording of their concert so I could make a new demo video for my piece. Enjoy! -Maggie Edited August 12, 20241 yr by pateceramics Found more typos...
April 15, 20178 yr You must be giddy with joy on hearing your music performed as it should with real singers. Good for you! I heard a slight flirtation with Shenandoah in the melody... (not that there's anything wrong with that). Very nice.
April 15, 20178 yr I like the folk touch to the melody - like Ken said, something of Shenandoah comes to mind. Very sweet melody and harmonics! The only setback I can find is that you don't separate the silent e's. In spoken French, it's been ages since anybody says them anymore, but in music they have to be counted as a separate syllable, otherwise the text doesn't sound articulate, especially in pieces like this one where the polyphony superposes different syllables. Besides, if the singers aren't native, not separating the silent e's will only show their accent more (thinking of calm(e) which sounds more like English calm than cal-me would).
April 15, 20178 yr Author Hey Mark, I did intend the e's to be separated, but life happens. Many of the singers had very good French pronunciation, (the concert was actually mainly in French), but there were occasional things that weren't perfect. Ah, well. Generally the separate e's aren't marked in vocal scores, just like shadow vowels on final consonants in English texts aren't marked as a separate syllable with a note value assigned. It's assumed you know to do them, and it's one of the things directors are constantly fussing at their musicians to fix in rehearsal, and to mark in if they need the visual reminder. On the whole though, this group had really good french for Americans and they did a beautiful job for a small group of singers. This piece needs really good breath control to make it feel seamless and floating, which is hard to achieve when you only have a couple of singers on a part when the notes divide. It means you can't stagger breathe. The Shenandoah connection hadn't occurred to me, but now I hear it!
April 15, 20178 yr Indeed, their accent is good and I wasn't criticising it! I recognise it is not an easy piece as far as breathing goes, especially, as you say, for a small ensemble. Thank you for the info about silent e's, I was only commenting because I never saw a single score where they weren't marked (and French is my mother tongue and I sing in a native French choir).
April 15, 20178 yr Author Egads! You're right! Sorry, I should have double checked before I posted. My Carmen score doesn't have them all marked, but I think that's because it also has an alternate English text underneath and sometimes rhythms are marked to accommodate the English. I'd imagine that's the case for the other examples I'm thinking of. Ugh... goes back to edit score... Thank you very much for drawing my attention to that! Rats.
January 22, 20188 yr Author Fixed my score, although I haven't changed the video yet. Better? Anything else I have missed with the French? Edited August 12, 20241 yr by pateceramics Fixing typos...
August 12, 20241 yr Author Video with updated score and audio from Oxford's wonderful Korrigan Consort.
August 20, 20241 yr Hello, Very beautiful music bravissimo. And what a pleasure to hear these singers, They sing exceptionally well. This second version is very successful at the prosody level (and the interpretation even more controlled vocally, and musically. "rejoindre" the DRE is to be placed in the prosody otherwise we have an inelegant contraction. French is not known a priori for its strong tonic accents, but they are present and sometimes surprising, they can give the expressive intention (And often dependent on the meaning we want to put in the sentence we pronounce). But overall here, it's quite well done, so congratulations. We can perfectly understand the text (version 2) in having to read it, which is an excellent thing. Only a few colors of vowels drift slightly but we are used to closing our eyes to these little things... I believe that as such, for example, the French forgive foreign singers singing French much more than they reciprocate! But you know, despite these few observations, I am conquered by such a beautiful piece so well sung! It's beautiful. Edited August 20, 20241 yr by Krisp
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.