1. Music For Voices Choral Music Learning Outcomes:
To understand the musical devices specific to the mass, motet, cantata, oratorio and madrigal.
To use the key terms relevant to the topic in discussions.
To understand the musical devices and conventions specific to Opera.
Choral Music
Music For Voices

2. Singing Oldest Musical activity Can be solo, pairs, choir
Can be accompanied or without.
The human voice can be trained – most singing is done by untrained voices
The mass , motet and cantata are types of vocal music composed for religious occasions and are usually performed by a choir.

3. Mass Musical setting of Eucharist or Communion.
Mozart – Requiem, K626
Musical setting of Eucharist or Communion.
Often sung in Latin, more modern masses may be sung in English.
A mass usually has 5 sections:
Kyrie – Lord have mercy; Christ have mercy
Gloria – Glory to god in the highest
Credo – I believe in one god
Sanctus – Holy holy holy (also includes Ossana (Hosanna) and Benedictus –Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the lord)
Agnus Dei – Lamb of God
There can be different versions of this plan depending on purpose. A requiem is a mass for the dead and has extra sections appropriate to the occasion.

4. Listening Activity -Mass
You are going to listen to Haydn’s Mass the ‘Nelson Mass’. Can you describe the feature you hear at the opening?
Describe what you can hear in terms of the musical elements.

5. Motet From the French word mots, meaning ‘words’.
During the Renaissance period (1450 – 1600) a motet was a sacred piece, composed for voices.
Polyphonic/ contrapuntal texture
Lots of imitation – a melodic idea is copied by the other voices.
Motets are performed a cappella.
Thomas Tallis - O Sacrum convivim

6. Cantata For one or two solo voices and choir.
Accompanied by instruments.
Sacred or secular.
Made up of recitatives, arias and choruses.
Arias are often paired with recitatives.
Recitative – a solo voice sings in a style resembling reciting.
Aria – Lengthy vocal solo (or duet) emphasises technique of singer or reflects on the story/ plot.
Choruses – Movement or section of music performed by a choir

7. Oratorio Setting of a religious story. Accompanied by an orchestra.
Handel - Messiah
Setting of a religious story.
Accompanied by an orchestra.
Has recitatives, arias and choruses.
A narrator often sings the recitatives.
One of the most famous oratorios is Messiah by Handel.

8. Listening Activity
Compare the recitative ‘Behold a virgin shall conceive’ with the aria that follows it. ‘O thou that tellest good things to Zion’, from the oratorio Messiah by Handel
Note the simple melody and accompaniment in the recitative and the more elaborate vocal melody and instrumental accompaniment in the aria, which begins with a lengthy instrumental introduction.

9. Madrigal Secular song. Sang by group of solo voices.
Often about life love and nature.
Popular in Italy during 16th century – spread to England when a collection was published there in 1588.
Very popular in Elizabethan England – this lead to English composers writing madrigals.

10. Listening Activity
Listen to ‘Now is the month of Maying’ by English composer Thomas Morley
Which two terms describe the texture at the opening on the words ‘ Now is the month of Maying, when merry lads are playing’?
homophonic/harmonic canonic octaves unison a cappella
To what new key has the piece modulated at the end of the phrase on the word playing?
relative major relative minor subdominant dominant
Suggest a possible time signature for this piece.

11. Opera
A play set to music – it is acted and has scenery, costumes and characters.
Words sung throughout to the accompaniment of an orchestra.
First written and performed at the beginning of 17th Century.
Use recitatives, arias and choruses.

12. Listening Activity
Listen to the aria ‘One fine day’ from the opera Madame Butterfly by the itallian composer Puccini.
The opera is set in Japan at the beginning of the 20th century and is about a young Japanese girl who falls in love with an older American sailor.
‘One fine Day’ is sung by the heroine. Cio-Cio San (Madame Butterfly), as she imagines her lover, Lieutenant Pinkerton returning to her.
Unfortunately the opera does not have a happy ending!
How does the music reflect the emotion and text?
Discuss this in partners.

13. Listening Activity
Now listen to and excerpt from the duet’Au fond du temple saint’ from Bizet’s opera The Pearl Fishers.
This is one of the most famous and popular of all operatic duets.
Two friends are singing about their former rivalry for the love of the same woman, and how, as part of their friendship, they have sworn never to see her again.
Why do you think the duet is so popular? In what ways does it suggest friendship and rivalry?
Although the words may be in a different language, the music should be able to create the mood.
In what way do both pieces show off the skill and technique of the singers? Can you hear places where the singers use vibrato, a trembling effect that is used to produce a warmer, more emotional sound?

14. Music for Solo Voice
Folk music – singer with no accompaniment, this is an example of a single line melody or monophonic texture.
Sometimes there may be a simple accompaniment usually a drone or a simple harmonic accompaniment.

15. Strophic & Through Composed
Strophic – same music is used for each verse or section of text.
Through Composed – fresh music is continually composed to reflect the changing mood or nature of the text.

16. Listening Activity
Listen to the opening two verses of the lead ‘Nahe des Geliebten’ (‘Nearness of the beloved’) by Schubert. In it, the singer is thinking of his beloved.
The mood and nature of the words does not change. In the first verse, for example, the singer imagines his beloved in the sunlight, the sea, the moonlight or streams. In the other verses he is still thinking of his beloved, but is reminded of her in different ways. Because the nature of the poem does not change, Schubert uses strophic form.
After a brief rising piano introduction, which may suggest yearning caused by thoughts of the beloved, the same tune is used for the second (and each successive) verse.

17. Listening Activity
Listen to the aria ‘O ruddier than the cherry’ from the opera Acis and Galatea by Handel. It is sung by a one-eyed giant called Polypheme. He has just introduced himself in a recitative. This is an example of a da capo aria. When the singer goes back to the beginning to repeat section A, it is common practice to introduce some variation. The singer might improvise or add ornaments and decorations to the music.
In this aria you can hear examples of melisma, where a word with one or two syllables (‘merry’ in this case) is sung with a flourish of many different notes.
Which word best describes the tonality of the music?
Major Minor Modal Pentatonic
Suggest a possible time signature.
Describe the texture of section B, beginning with the words ‘Ripe as the melting cluster’
Name the cadence at the end of the excerpt.