Friday
December 02, 2005
SGN.org
Volume 33
Issue 48
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Saturday, Nov 21, 2009
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The Greek Byzantine Choir |
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| The Greek Byzantine Choir | |
| Macho sound that would make a Gregorian chant sound downright feminine
By Rod Parke SGN A&E Writer I have never heard this group, or anything like it, before. Thus, I cannot tell you how good it was. Frankly, I lack a proper vocabulary to describe much of what we heard. But I can describe my experience in St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church as this all-male choir sang works of Byzantine chant. First of all, the singers used a vocal technique unlike Western singers. The ancient musical cultures of India, the Middle East, and North Africa used instruments and vocal techniques foreign to the Western tradition. If you have ever heard the chanting of the Koran, you will understand that there are vastly different vocal methods for producing song. Or perhaps you have heard the Throat Singers of Tuva, who have performed at Meany Hall. While not so foreign as the above, the Greek Byzantine Choir members clearly belonged more to that tradition than to Gregorian chant or modern Western singing. The result was a sound that I would not describe as beautiful. In fact, this group of about 20 men produced loud vibrations that focused the high frequencies into grainy overtones that sounded like a malfunctioning hifi tweeter. At first I thought it was just my ears, but I asked my partner, who confirmed that it sounded like a lot of noise. (The acoustics at St. Demetrios are bright, to be sure, but the packed audience deadened any excess reverberation.) As my ears became more accustomed to this gritty sound, I was able to listen more clearly to the more musical parts of the sound. To put a less negative spin on the sound of the Choir, it was indeed powerfully virile, an almost macho sound that would make a Gregorian chant sound downright feminine in comparison. Secondly, the harmonies were pretty wild. Granted, much early music contains dissonances that make it seem almost modern at times. But the strangeness here came from the vocal ornamentations, of which there were very many of many different kinds, often going against the tonality I thought we were hearing. Every chant was performed with a bass drone note, sometimes two of them at an interval of a fifth. The wanderings from traditional Western tonality were highlighted by the constant presence of the drone note. I like this effect very much, and the drone gave everything an added and very welcome warmth. Also, the drone made the cadences more effective as we returned to consonance and perfect fifths. There was one soloist with a beautiful bass voice. The program saved his long solo for the last. The Eastern ornamentations were much easier to discern in a solo voice than within the fabric of many voices at once, and I much enjoyed his highly ornamented singing. The program included music from the 7th century A.D. all the way up to 1800. One had to listen carefully to hear differences. To a casual listener, much of this music would sound the same. Texts were in Greek, and some chants included nonsense syllables. One could be hypnotized or become bored. Though I appreciated the chance to hear something so new to me, I was frankly glad there was only one encore. Reviewer Rod Parke can be reached at: rmp62@columbia.edu |
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International Readers |
 
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