Dear all,
especially the King's Singers et al. among you... ;-)
A few weeks ago, a conductor (whom I appreciate a lot) gave a lesson
about how to execute tied quavers in British choral music. My whole life
before, another conductor (whom I appreciate a lot) taught me the
exactly opposite opinion. Researching on the topic, I find a post on
http://jandrewowen.com/en/2015/03/19/tied-eighth-notes-in-choral-music/
mentioning both variants, and in fact the very piece we currently
rehearse (Howell's "Like as a hart desireth the waterbrooks").
Hence, I inquire to the great community here to provide me with more
opinions, surveys, and references...
The question is whether the singers are supposed to sing the note values
true to notation, or whether a final quaver after a long note indicates
that the final consonant is to be executed on the very beat where the
note is.
For the beginning of a word, I learned that you should pronounce
consonants exactly on the beat. Consequently, the final consonants of a
word would be performed on the *next* beat, that is, on the beat of the
rest.
In the meantime I've been told that some conductors in Britain prefer to
have the consonants at the beginning of a syllable spoken *before* the
beat, so that the vowel already is delivered with full sound *on* the
beat. With that agreement, it would make some sense to add a short
additional note to mark the position of an end consonant, just as a
notational convention.
Attached are a few typical excerpts demonstrating the situation. The
first is from Howell's "Like as the hart"; the second is from Rutter's
Gloria, and unusual in that the final quaver is not even on a note that
appears in the chord of the accompaniment; the last two are from Mathias
"A babe is born", and interesting because the "cry" has no consonant to
end in, and the final "Noel!" has an accent on the tied quaver.
Interestingly, also the tied g in the organ pedal has an accent, which
is obviously impossible to perform by other means than adjusting the length.
I hope I could bring my point across, and look forward to interesting
opinions...
Cheers,
Alexander
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