Dynamics.
Beauty of tone.
Contralto voices.
The question is near: What constitutes excellence in a choral performance? To answer: The same qualities that constitute excellence in an orchestral performance, will scarcely suffice, except as a generalization. A higher degree of harmonious action is exacted of a body of singers than of a body of instrumentalists. Many of the parts in a symphony are played by a single instrument. Community of voice belongs only to each of the five bodies of string-players. In a chorus there are from twelve to one hundred and fifty voices, or even more, united in each part. This demands the effacement of individuality in a chorus, upon the assertion of which, in a band, under the judicious guidance of the conductor, many of the effects of color and expression depend. Each group in a choir must strive for homogeneity of voice quality; each singer must sink the ego in the aggregation, yet employ it in its highest potency so far as the mastery of the technics of singing is concerned. In cultivating precision of attack (i.e., promptness in beginning a tone and leaving it off), purity of intonation (i.e., accuracy or justness of pitch—"singing in tune" according to the popular phrase), clearness of enunciation, and careful attention to all the dynamic gradations of tone, from very soft up to very loud, and all shades of expression between, in the development of that gradual augmentation of tone called crescendo, and the gradual diminution called diminuendo, the highest order of individual skill is exacted from every chorister; for upon individual perfection in these things depends the collective effect which it is the purpose of the conductor to achieve. Sensuous beauty of tone, even in large aggregations, is also dependent to a great degree upon careful and proper emission of voice by each individual, and it is because the contralto part in most choral music, being a middle part, lies so easily in the voices of the singers that the contralto contingent in American choirs, especially, so often attracts attention by the charm of its tone. Contralto voices are seldom forced into the regions which compel so great a physical strain that beauty and character must be sacrificed to mere accomplishment of utterance, as is frequently the case with the soprano part.
Selfishness fatal to success.
Tonal balance.
Yet back of all this exercise of individual skill there must be a spirit of self-sacrifice which can only exist in effective potency if prompted by universal sympathy and love for the art. A selfish chorister is not a chorister, though possessed of the voice of a Melba or Mario. Balance between the parts, not only in the fundamental constitution of the choir but also in all stages of a performance, is also a matter of the highest consideration. In urban communities, especially, it is difficult to secure perfect tonal symmetry—the rule is a poverty in tenor voices—but those who go to hear choral concerts are entitled to hear a well-balanced choir, and the presence of an army of sopranos will not condone a squad of tenors. Again, I say, better a well-balanced small choir than an ill-balanced large one.
Declamation.
Expression.
The choruses in "The Messiah."