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Chapter Six, with Chapter Five, focuses on opportunities for composers in the environment of Japanese modernity characterized by the presence of European spheres of musical participation. Chapter Six addresses choral singing, a popular, primarily amateur sphere. Its is situated in Japan by chronological tracking from school music in the modern era, to choruses formed for political reasons, in response to post-war conditions, or in the interest of expressing Japanese sentiments. Motivations for the abundant practice of commissioning of new works from Japanese composers are explored. Intersections are noted of song and choral music, for children and adults. Some composer’s choices for texts and settings are analyzed, including works for chorus and orchestra.

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.

This chapter features essays written by composers, conductors, symphony orchestra conductors, an organizational consultant, and leaders in the choral field regarding children’s choirs. Two topics are discussed: why organizational excellence is as important as striving for musical excellence, and the importance of children’s choirs for the future of choral singing in America. The chapter also includes biographies of the contributors.

The history of the Sacred Harmonic Society, one of London’s foremost choral societies, is an established part of England’s performance history in the nineteenth century. Far less is known about its beginnings. This chapter investigates the Society’s founding ideologies and argues that its initial purpose was less concerned with dissatisfaction over the dominance of foreign musicians in London or over the rift between the opera and the emerging concert culture. Rather, its founders sought to establish an amateur music culture in a city set on the professionalization of the music business. The Society’s emphasis on regular rehearsal, and on communality over performance events, betray its roots in the self-conscious identity of a marginalized social group. Its members sought to participate actively in the spiritual and artistic practice of singing sacred music across a variety of denominations, thereby combining spiritual and artistic practices to form a unified voice. This voice, among others, would cause significant changes in London’s concert culture around mid-century, with the sound of communality pitted against a professional music culture fractured by the individual voice of the virtuoso.