An old railroad crossing warns: "STOP, LOOK, and LISTEN," but it is equally applicable to the choral endeavor. It is those final moments before the music begins that make all the difference. If you take the time right then to stop, look, and listen, many choral disasters will be averted. In this essay, I will focus on the director's role. Singers will learn how to do their share of the work next time. I. STOP! Choir directors are always in a hurry. How often do we jump up in front of the choir, open the music, give the pitch and away we go? How often do we wonder why everything crashes and burns around the fifth measure? The first step is simply to stop. Slow yourself down. Take the time to make sure that your music is in order. Take the time to settle your own breathing. Take the time to consciously let go of the tension around your eyes and open your ears. Yes, you have the time to do this because it can be accomplished in less than thirty seconds. Doing this simple step will set you free from the chaos that may be surrounding you. If you're in rehearsal, there may be singers fluttering around with their music, adjusting their chairs, searching for cough drops, or complaining about how far they had to walk from their cars. Your demonstration of poise and recollection won't be lost on them. Instead, it will radiate out towards them and help them pull themselves together. (The back row of basses is often immune to this, but don't let that deter your efforts.) Ideally, the rustling, shuffling, and chattering will stop and attention will shift to you. If it is the beginning of Mass or the start of the offertory or communion chant, you need to move into place with enough time to do these steps and not cause unnecessary delays. Even if your choir is relatively settled down, there can be sonic and visual distractions behind or next to you from crying children and wandering ushers. You don't need to stand like a soldier at attention, but an easy and confident posture will reassure the singers that you know what you're doing. It will also ensure that you are really one hundred per cent "there." After you've taken that minute to stop and get yourself centered, it is time for the second step--looking. II. LOOK! Take a moment to look at the music in front of you. For openers make sure you're actually looking at the piece you wish to perform. Review the first several measures and remind yourself of the key, the tempo, the structure of the motet, chant, or hymn. Sense the movement of the work internally before you start your singers. If you are directing the piece without a score, think through these steps. Only a few seconds are needed. Now look at the choir. Truly look at them and don't simply see a herd of singers. Acknowledge them as individuals who have taken time from their own lives to bring sacred music to life. It is neither necessary nor desirable to make "goo goo" eyes at the choir; however, this connection is essential. Choral music, whether it i
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[This sermon was preached on Christmas Day, 2010, at St. Thomas Aquinas Church, Palo Alto] I. How can we speak a word that spoke us first? How can we dare to utter the Word that was with God before anything else existed? How can we speak the verbum ineffabile, the "ineffable Word," as one of the prayers of Advent puts it? Even under God's inspiration, prophets have tried through the ages but only gotten so far; as the Letter to the Hebrews says: In times past, God spoke in partial and various ways to our ancestors through the prophets. "In partial and various ways"--that means: they grasped only in parts and splinters that one Word through which everything was created: ... through whom he created the universe, who is the refulgence of his glory, the very imprint of his being, and who sustains all things by his mighty word. or with the Gospel of John: All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. The Word of which the Gospel speaks is the Word: it is the last and ultimate word after which nothing else can be said anymore, because everything has been said. But is also the first and only Word, the one Word in which incomprehensible God grasps his very self at once and as a whole, in utter simplicity. All our human conceptions of it remain just that: human conceptions, and conceptions in the plural; they are many thoughts, attempting to find God through the many names, but always missing the One Name, the Word itself. As soon as we have begun to speak, it is already past and has escaped us, because whatever we say, we think and say in time, not in the simplicity of the eternal now. The divine word is indeed ineffable, unspeakable and will forever elude us. It is not surprising then, that people would not grasp it: He was in the world, and the world came to be through him, but the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, but his own people did not accept him. II. Already in our own experience we find some things unspeakable: a great love that reduces us to stammering; pain and grief that cannot really be communicated to others; an awesome sight that consigns us to stupefied silence. One response might be to try and express ourselves in art, especially music. After all, in heaven man and angel sing in the presence of the ineffable God, in awe of the Beatific Vision. And the angels sang the Gloria in excelsis at the birth of our Savior. Christians have produced a rich heritage of Christmas Carols in response to the same event; there are probably more hymns for Christmas than for any other liturgical season. Yet even here there seem to be limitations: The pianist Arthur Schnabel once said: "I only play music that is better than one can play it." What he meant by this is not that the music is too difficult for the pianist's fingers, but that even what can be done technically does not really express what this music truly wants to say; the expression will always limp behind the meaning. Or we might think of Beethoven's s
{"title":"The Ineffable Word","authors":"Anselm Ramelow","doi":"10.2307/j.ctt1cgf1bq.17","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1cgf1bq.17","url":null,"abstract":"[This sermon was preached on Christmas Day, 2010, at St. Thomas Aquinas Church, Palo Alto] I. How can we speak a word that spoke us first? How can we dare to utter the Word that was with God before anything else existed? How can we speak the verbum ineffabile, the \"ineffable Word,\" as one of the prayers of Advent puts it? Even under God's inspiration, prophets have tried through the ages but only gotten so far; as the Letter to the Hebrews says: In times past, God spoke in partial and various ways to our ancestors through the prophets. \"In partial and various ways\"--that means: they grasped only in parts and splinters that one Word through which everything was created: ... through whom he created the universe, who is the refulgence of his glory, the very imprint of his being, and who sustains all things by his mighty word. or with the Gospel of John: All things came to be through him, and without him nothing came to be. The Word of which the Gospel speaks is the Word: it is the last and ultimate word after which nothing else can be said anymore, because everything has been said. But is also the first and only Word, the one Word in which incomprehensible God grasps his very self at once and as a whole, in utter simplicity. All our human conceptions of it remain just that: human conceptions, and conceptions in the plural; they are many thoughts, attempting to find God through the many names, but always missing the One Name, the Word itself. As soon as we have begun to speak, it is already past and has escaped us, because whatever we say, we think and say in time, not in the simplicity of the eternal now. The divine word is indeed ineffable, unspeakable and will forever elude us. It is not surprising then, that people would not grasp it: He was in the world, and the world came to be through him, but the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, but his own people did not accept him. II. Already in our own experience we find some things unspeakable: a great love that reduces us to stammering; pain and grief that cannot really be communicated to others; an awesome sight that consigns us to stupefied silence. One response might be to try and express ourselves in art, especially music. After all, in heaven man and angel sing in the presence of the ineffable God, in awe of the Beatific Vision. And the angels sang the Gloria in excelsis at the birth of our Savior. Christians have produced a rich heritage of Christmas Carols in response to the same event; there are probably more hymns for Christmas than for any other liturgical season. Yet even here there seem to be limitations: The pianist Arthur Schnabel once said: \"I only play music that is better than one can play it.\" What he meant by this is not that the music is too difficult for the pianist's fingers, but that even what can be done technically does not really express what this music truly wants to say; the expression will always limp behind the meaning. Or we might think of Beethoven's s","PeriodicalId":211679,"journal":{"name":"Sacred Music","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"1900-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125828948","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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