Opinion of choral music

[Ban my account ffs!]

I've pretty much involved with a choir (sometimes more than one) since I was in 4th grade.  I've been baritone, 2nd and 1st tenor though my ideal range is 2nd tenor.

I prefer mens choirs because of the rich overtones, but of course mixed and treble choirs can be amazing.

I bring this up because I found a CD of my sophomore year at Saint John's University where the Men's choir sang the mass with organ accompaniment.. it's very dark, very traditional, very Catholic.

Then we joined with the Women's choir and the mixed choir and the St. Cloud community orchestra and a guy that composed the mass with strong gospel/soul influence from his black southern upbringing.

It shows that sometimes church isn't boring at all.  The composer played the piano for the concert that we did in St. John's Abbey Church to honor the Abbot after decades of service to the monastery.

It was also cool because the university also had a boys choir, and we join with them at Christmas in the old church with a massive Christmas tree where the alter was.. it was a special experience.
Do you like choral music?

[Torie]

I generally enjoy it, but enjoy it most in the context of a symphonic piece where the choral voices are part of the tapestry. Britten's War Requiem (one of the most spectacular and moving pieces ever written in my opinion) and the 4th movement of Beethoven's 9th symphony are examples.

[Sam Spade]

I like choral music - and I've written a ton of it - so there.

I still prefer the 'a cappella' work of pre-1600 composers most of all - Josquin dez Prez is probably one of the five greatest composers ever, yet few people knows who he is.

[12th Doctor]

I am a big fan of Gregorian Chant.  I like other forms of choral music as well.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Depends how it's done. I love it when it's done well (I'm part Welsh so I have no choice in the matter ), but when done badly I do want to murder things.

Britten's War Requiem (one of the most spectacular and moving pieces ever written in my opinion)

True, dat.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     Not my cup of tea, but I'll listen to it if it's on. That applies for most things, though.

[The Mikado]

Fantastic stuff.  The human voice is one of the most powerful, versatile instruments at our disposal.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Freedom music

The only reason I can go to church sometimes is when there's a choral concert

[Joe Biden 2020]

Its my favorite kind of music.  I especially like it when they sing the old traditional hymns or praise and worship choruses.  I agree with Snowguy, I love men's choruses.  Plus, I love to sing myself, but am more of a 2nd baritone to a high bass.  I can occasionally go up into the 2nd tenor and down to the deep bass, but generally I stay in the 2nd baritone.  When involved in a church choir, I always sing bass because there's generally not enough baritones to break the men up into tenors, baritones, and basses.

[John Dibble]

Do we really need to put "freedom" and "horrible" in front of every poll choice?

Anywho, I like it.

[Earth]

I really like choral music in general, but I tend to gravitate towards a more open, reverberated sound if I'm on the lookout for it. Philip Glass has a choral piece he wrote in the early 70s that's very spacious. It sounds great.

[Ban my account ffs!]

I really like Eric Whitacre.. some of his stuff is bone chilling.  There isn't much music out there that can truly make you shiver... his stuff does it for me... especially water night

[Smid]

Highly, highly, highly favourable.

[Ban my account ffs!]

Here's a really good recording of Water Night
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pg0tuah-VA

And here's a really haunting song from an Australian composer.  My senior year of high school we did this at our last concert... I got to do some of the overtones at the end.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooNvbg4dKNM

Listen carefully.. you can hear overtones throughout the song... this is an impeccable performance of the song.  The overtones are the fluty sounding noises that sound like they're higher than anything the rest of the choir is singing.  Buddhist monks do it a lot.

[JSojourner]

Love it.  John Rutter, especially...Anglo-Cat that I am...

[Jake]

I really don't like it.

[Eraserhead]

Pretty sad that people like Vander Blubb get sexually excited by reading thread titles.  Sad and pathetic.