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What Classical Music Are You Listening To?


StarThrower

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On 8/30/2021 at 0:00 PM, Larry Kart said:

A post on Amazon ( re Cinquecento's recording of Richefort's  Requiem) from a very knowledgeable guy:

Here's the learning process:
* First listen to any track on the CD and count the separate voices. You will hear six on most tracks; just five 2, 10, & 12; just 4 on 11; but 7 on track 14. You WILL be able to separate them, and that's one of the criteria for considering this performance a paragon of polyphony.
* Now listen to the separate voices and note that each one has its recognizable timbre; you could identify each singer in a blind test, perhaps even over the telephone. Each voice has character and musicality of its own, and that's a second criterion for excellence.
* Now choose one voice, other than the highest (superius) soprano/alto, and follow that one voice through the whole piece of music. You WILL be able to do so with all five or six voices throughout every piece. You'll hear each voice as an emotive statement in itself. You should note that the voices don't "fill in" in the manner of a large choir. The "transparency" of the vocal lines permits you to hear rhythmic and harmonic complexities and interactions. It also allows you to hear the harmonic logic of dissonance resolving to perfect consonance at cadences.
* Now the coup de grace: Listen and try to hear all the voices at once, not as a big whoosh of choral chords, but as a synchronized conversation of voices, each one interesting in itself.

That, my friends, in non-technical terms, is how Renaissance polyphony should sound! 

That sounds like the method one should use when listening to the Duke Ellington Orchestra;) 

 

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