01.:to..~·: first Let 1s examine two aspects of last Monday's rehearsal: in rhythm, and second -- approaches to choral reading t~chniques. It is the long-established custom of instrumentalists to make a distiction bet~een musicians (in which class they include themselves) and singers -- who may be taken seriously in terms of their own career and financial success, or dramatic ability or even physical opulence of sound -- but who, in general, in terms of "musicianship 11 are to be regarded as but little in advance of a trained animal act. · This attitude is not altogether without justification, for certainly the great singers of the past one hundred years are acclaimed not for the impeccable qualities of their musicianship, but for the sheer physical beauty ofn their voices. , Some of them may indeed have been fine musicians -_,;_but ·-that ~ .J is scarcely remembered, or even considered noteworthy. The great voices are) <._;V' infrequent enough to commandadulation whenever or wherever they appear. Now, if we take '~usicianshipn to mean sight-reading ability and a wide / acquaintance with repertoire, on the whole I should think we would have to admit that professional instrumentalists are generally in advance of professional singers; and there probably is a similar status with regard to their amateur counterparts. There are understandable reasons for this. In the first place very few instrumentalists arrive at a professional career who did not begin their study well before ten years of age, frequently at five or six. The finger and eye techniques acquired at this age are almost as naturally learned as those of reading words and adding sums. On the other 1 hand, the singer seldom discovers he has a voice until late in the teens; men frequently are in their twenties before the voice is sufficiently set physically to warrant beginning to study. It is scarcely surprising that singers should then be some years behind instrumentalists in sight reading or repertoire. While one would not reconnnend the exclusive study of voice, it still is ) tkue that the singer is faced with a lot to learn, rather late in life, about vocal technique; and if his attention is fixed almost excl-qsively upon vocal sound rather than upon music theo~!, i~ mai_~e regretted, _but i L i~ at leas t__.--understandable. /- - - 1--· c -r ···· ·-In the second place, / since the voice is not something one can approach with sight and touch, and manipulate to the limits of digital dexterity, it should not be maligned simply because it is not so facile an instrument as the piano, clarinet or violin. Excepting for those born with absolute pitch, sight-reading for the sing~ er is a complex business. It is not so simple as putting the next finger down. A good many of us, I suspect, could type sixty words a minute, -- but we wot.ld ha7e a devil of a time sight-singing the comparable ratio -of five notes per second. On the other hand, I have known two or three people · who could sightsing, using syllables, with very nearly this keyboard speed, -- and who made the most horrible sounds imaginable. It is a terribly difficult thing to sightread and produce a beautiful sound while so doing. There are a dozen additional reasons why it is difficult to be a satisfactory vocal "musician." They all have soma validity, and we are entitled to find comfort in them equal only to our determination not to be mastered by them. For, whatever the difficulties, the singer who finally masters his musical craft finds a _joy in music known only to a few of the very greatest instrumentalists.
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-2The next thing I want to say is that each of you is important. "How can I possibly influence the decision -- and whatthehell difference does it make?" is the inescapable consumptive plague of our time. Well, I don 1 t know how you can help the Brothers K arrive at a decent settlement of the one- or no-world contro~ersy, but insofar as the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus is concerned you make a difference. You were selected for membership in this chorus because you seemed to poscess talents of voice and musicianship, and -- just as importantly -- intellec.tual capacities and human sensibilities which would enable you to join with others and undertake the re-creation of certain great works of musical art "intimations of immortality'' -- unavailable to the solo performer. The big decision in this whole audition procedure was not made by the conductor. His was secondary and dependent. · The big decision was, in fact, your initial decision to audition. You proposed, he accepted. This only means that all of us had commonhopes and hungers before we met and began living (as in "coming to life") tcgether rather regularly on Monday evening s , assort edly on Thursdays and Saturdays and -- 'par •n , spresshun -- Occasionally on Sunday. If our net product -- our performance -- were arrived at by individual competition, victory and defeat, then each of us would not be so important. (This world insists on one winner . - even between champions.) But if our product is arrived at by commoneffort and understanding and devotion, then all of us are diminished by the absence or weakness of each of us.
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What is required of you as members of this chorus is not that you bring a ~ standardized, prescribed and unvarying amount of voice, musician ship and mental capacity to rehearsals (music-making has little in commonwith aut omatic p~:!setters), but that you bring your self -- ruffed-up and idiosyncratic as that may be. No one else has that. No one else can bring it. The mo: ;.-e var i ed r.:mr heterogeneity, the richer should be our community -- if it happ~ns. ______. What is required of the conductor is that he make ava:tlable and attr a,-t ~.ve to his co-workers disciplines which educate .- not simply dic t .~~te, to ti :e end that each person ultimately is capable of accepting his own honest and ent-ire musical responsibility. Granted, it's the conductor's job to teac!1 11notr ·!J'1 ; much more important is his responsibility to teach ways of learnin g not 0s. If t,-:.JOrehear s als on a Benj amin Britten cantata do not short-cut ahd f:' .i.m,li.fy t.he problems of learning a Walton cantata, then the conductor also should l eave r ehearsal at intermission -- and stay away. --For at the final point music is sound, and you people make the sound. --And the most meaningful sound in music is that which is self-disciplined, se l .f.instructed and self-motivated. -- ··-Do you newer members of our chorus begin to see what a ~mia~al musical monogamyyou•ve contracted? And on the occasion of our A-th.e.:mivdrsary, s enior head ~, are you once more apprised of the st:.."'ength and state of ~1...,·.union?