Aw, Simon, you could at least have let my lot have a crack at it first, even though it would inevitably have ended in failure – after all, it doesn’t look that atonal: the voice-leading is fairly un-treacherous (on the page, at least), and that final chord is only an Eb minor triad with added major sixth (the modern SATB composer’s bread-and-butter, in other words)…
It seems you have a different take on this, Simon, but the way anything remotely departing from convention and familiarity is so often summarily dismissed by amateurs is very depressing even though understandable on one level. One for the BBC Singers I think!
Tom, i was reflecting more on the fact that i didn’t focus at all on writing something collaborative with the choir. Pretty much everything i’ve ever composed has been for specific performers, usually who i know, and therefore has been collaborative. In one sense, writing A Lenten Prayer was a useful experience inasmuch as it made it clear how things can go awry when you don’t pay much attention to what the performer is used to. i naively assumed they’d be able to do whatever i wanted them to. But you’re right, the BBC Singers would have just sight-read through it all without any problems.
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Aw, Simon, you could at least have let my lot have a crack at it first, even though it would inevitably have ended in failure – after all, it doesn’t look that atonal: the voice-leading is fairly un-treacherous (on the page, at least), and that final chord is only an Eb minor triad with added major sixth (the modern SATB composer’s bread-and-butter, in other words)…
It seems you have a different take on this, Simon, but the way anything remotely departing from convention and familiarity is so often summarily dismissed by amateurs is very depressing even though understandable on one level. One for the BBC Singers I think!
Tom, i was reflecting more on the fact that i didn’t focus at all on writing something collaborative with the choir. Pretty much everything i’ve ever composed has been for specific performers, usually who i know, and therefore has been collaborative. In one sense, writing A Lenten Prayer was a useful experience inasmuch as it made it clear how things can go awry when you don’t pay much attention to what the performer is used to. i naively assumed they’d be able to do whatever i wanted them to. But you’re right, the BBC Singers would have just sight-read through it all without any problems.
…but would any of their “alternative funding models” give them licence to sing it…???