The Choral
Experience
By Volodymyr Kish
When
you take it a step further and combine the voices of a large number of people
blending in exquisite four-part harmony, the experience can only be described
in emotional and spiritual terms. Well
trained voices, under the skilful direction of a talented conductor and brought
to bear on inspired scores and lyrics, can produce moments of pure bliss.
I
like the way my cousin Hryts from Pidkamin once described it to me. Hryts knew and loved music, being a dyak
(cantor) at his village church and the director at one time of the village
choir.
“A
good choir,” he stated “is God’s reflection of Nature and the Universe in
musical terms. The soprano voices are
like the magnificent notes of tiny birds sending their hopes and dreams soaring
to the high heavens. The lushness of the
alto sounds reflect all the beauty and natural riches of the world around
us. The tenors represent the power and
majesty of man and the animal kingdom.
Lastly, the basses provide the fundamental bedrock and elemental
resonances on which the world is built!”
Hryts
is obviously somewhat of a sentimentalist and prone to interesting metaphors,
but I can appreciate what he was getting at.
When you listen to a good choir, the effect goes far beyond just an
intellectual appreciation for the technical execution. A good choir speaks the language of emotion.
It reaches deep into the soul. It stirs
us simultaneously at both the conscious and unconscious level. It creates
something that is more felt than understood.
Above all, it is almost impossible to adequately express in words.
Ukrainians
have always loved to sing, and the large number of choirs within the Ukrainian
community across Canada continues to testify to this. Their roots lay within the age-old traditions
of village life, where the community created its own entertainment, centred
around native and local music, song and dance.
For most of our history, singing was done in unison, and was essentially
either folk or sacred church music. It
was only starting somewhere in the 17th Century that multi-part
harmony started to infiltrate our musical canon from Western European sources
where it had sprung up and developed rapidly during the Renaissance.
During
the 18th Century, multi-part choral works began to appear thanks to
the efforts of such composers as Berezovsky, Bortniansky and Vedel, though most
of their works were focused on sacred church music. It was only in the 19th Century,
spurred by the genius of Mykola Lysenko that we start seeing significant choral
music of a more secular nature.
Prominent amongst those who came after him was Oleksandr Koshets, who
eventually found his way to Canada and became a significant factor and
inspiration in stimulating the growth of choirs and choral music in Canada in
recent times. I personally remember how
entranced I was upon first hearing the Koshets Choir from Winnipeg sing in
concert – it was truly a mesmerizing moment.
Although
the number of Ukrainian choirs in Canada has shrunk in recent decades from its
peak in the 1950s and 1960s, those that remain such as the Vesnivka Choir in
Toronto, or the Canadian Bandurist Capella led by Dr. Victor Mishalow, are of
exceptional professional calibre and talent.
My
choral concert experience of the past weekend has led to a genuine resolution
to actively try and partake of such experiences more frequently. It is food for the soul that should be a
steady part of our cultural diet.