David Manning
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195182392
- eISBN:
- 9780199851485
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195182392.003.0021
- Subject:
- Music, History, Western
The formula in choral singing is strongly is emphasized in the village choral festivals, wherein each choir singing by itself sounds feeble and tentative, but when combined in one big choir suddenly ...
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The formula in choral singing is strongly is emphasized in the village choral festivals, wherein each choir singing by itself sounds feeble and tentative, but when combined in one big choir suddenly finds its powers increased tenfold. This chapter describes the early Leith Hill Festivals in the opening passages of Charles Wood's “Full Fathom Five,” where the rather poor efforts of six shy singers by themselves were converted into a sonorous confident crowd. Choral singing is a great art, but to become so it has to imbibe some of the qualities of a great game, and it is those very characteristics that go to make a good footballer or a good cricketer. So it is with a good choral singer. These qualities, it is true, refer more to the craftsman than to the artist, but if craft without art is dead, art without craft is impotent.Less
The formula in choral singing is strongly is emphasized in the village choral festivals, wherein each choir singing by itself sounds feeble and tentative, but when combined in one big choir suddenly finds its powers increased tenfold. This chapter describes the early Leith Hill Festivals in the opening passages of Charles Wood's “Full Fathom Five,” where the rather poor efforts of six shy singers by themselves were converted into a sonorous confident crowd. Choral singing is a great art, but to become so it has to imbibe some of the qualities of a great game, and it is those very characteristics that go to make a good footballer or a good cricketer. So it is with a good choral singer. These qualities, it is true, refer more to the craftsman than to the artist, but if craft without art is dead, art without craft is impotent.
