Relation of Words and Music
As in an oratorio, the written text in a choral symphony can be as important as the music, and the chorus and soloists can participate equally with the instruments in the exposition and development of musical ideas. The text can also help determine whether the composer follows symphonic form strictly, as in the case of Rachmaninoff, Britten and Shostakovich, or whether they expand symphonic form, as in the case of Berlioz, Mahler and Havergal Brian. Sometimes the choice of text has led the composer to different symphonic structures, as with Szymanowski, Schnittke and, again, Havergal Brian. The composer can also choose to treat the text fluidly, in a manner more like music than narrative. Such was the case with Vaughan Williams, Mahler and Philip Glass.
Read more about this topic: Choral Symphony
Famous quotes containing the words relation, words and/or music:
“In relation to God, we are like a thief who has burgled the house of a kindly householder and been allowed to keep some of the gold. From the point of view of the lawful owner this gold is a gift; From the point of view of the burglar it is a theft. He must go and give it back. It is the same with our existence. We have stolen a little of God’s being to make it ours. God has made us a gift of it. But we have stolen it. We must return it.”
—Simone Weil (1909–1943)
“The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the revealed things belong to us and to our children forever, to observe all the words of this law.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Deuteronomy 29:29.
“... the majority of colored men do not yet think it worth while that women aspire to higher education.... The three R’s, a little music and a good deal of dancing, a first rate dress-maker and a bottle of magnolia balm, are quite enough generally to render charming any woman possessed of tact and the capacity for worshipping masculinity.”
—Anna Julia Cooper (1859–1964)