Have you ever attended a classical music concert where the music was flawlessly executed but left feeling unmoved by the experience?
When we discuss the emotive response that classical music has the capability to evoke, we are entering into wildly subjective territory. Our feelings towards certain music can also be influenced by our emotional state at the time, which can vary. When it comes to choral music, however, we have lyrics to help guide the feelings behind the musical performance. In the wake of the flawless perfection that we appear to expect from choirs lately, it seems that the emotional underpinning of the words can sometimes be lost in lieu of melodic/harmonic/rhythmic precision. One can even argue that singing the pitches and rhythms correctly is not enough. Understanding the context behind the text and composition of choral piece can greatly influence the interpretation of the song and how it impacts the audience. Can precision and passion co-exist in the choral sphere?
Can precision and passion co-exist in the choral sphere?
Choral musicians are often billed as the crafting beauty through glorious singing. While true, choirs are mainly storytellers and crafters of creating a space for emotive expression. The emotive landscape is outlined in most choral compositions through the addition of dynamics and expression markings. But a choral score can only dictate so much information on how the work is to be performed. There will always be subtle, if not vast, differences between interpretations. Choirs do not perform original works like many singer-songwriters—choirs are all singing essentially the same songs. In that case, what criteria compels us differentiate one choir’s performance of the same piece over another? One can surmise that precision is the deciding factor why someone likes one performance over another because the listener is not aware of the emotional context of the text. They cannot judge and compare what they do not know.
One song that can be an example surrounding this idea of understanding context of a song is “Good Night, Dear Heart” composed by Dan Forrest. To create meaningful choral experiences in the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, our professional vocal chamber ensemble Voices of Concinnity was exploring outdoor covered spaces to sing together and record songs to share online. (Remember those times in 2020 when singers needed to be masked and not performing inside for safety reasons?) One of our singers is a historian with the Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford, Connecticut which has a beautiful, covered porch. Concinnity chose a choral piece to record on the porch that was directly connected with Mark Twain ,whose real name is Samuel Clemens. The song “Good Night, Dear Heart” is set to the text that Mark Twain placed on the tombstone of his daughter Olivia Susan Clemens, called “Susy” by her family, who died young. The words were adapted by her father Mark Twain/Samuel Clemens from a poem titled “Annette” written by writer Robert Richardson. The words on Susy’s tombstone, which can be seen in Elmira, NY, are as follows:
“Warm summer sun, shine kindly here,
Warm southern wind, blow softly here,
Green sod above, lie light, lie light—
Good night, dear heart, good night, good night.”
The sadness can be intuited by simply reading the text. The level of sorrow of the song setting of this text can be further understood when reading the composers note by Dan Forrest, who wrote the work as an elegy to a daughter soon to be adopted by his brother’s family who passed away (full description is here). But the heartache of this text placed on Susy’s tomb is illuminated when we delve further into the story.
In 1896, Susy Clemens had chosen not to accompany her family on Twain’s European tour. While visiting the Clemens’ home in Hartford, where she spent much of her childhood, Susy developed a fever that later turned into spinal meningitis. At the young age of 24, Susy Clemens passed away at the Clemen’s Hartford home before her mother could return home to be with her. The Clemens family never returned to live at their house in Hartford. Samuel Clemens later wrote in his autobiography, reminiscing to a time when his children were young and he would blow soapy bubbles for them with tobacco smoke, “I remember those days of twenty-one years ago, and a certain pathos clings about them. Susy, with her manifold young charms and her iridescent mind, was as lovely a bubble as any we made that day—and as [transitory]. She passes, as they [passed] in her youth and beauty, and nothing of her is left but a [heart-break] and a memory.”
As singers, understanding the context of the text on this deeper level can influence how we sing the song.
As singers, understanding the context of the text on this deeper level can influence how we sing the song. The sadness of the text and the composer’s connection to the words are important influences to the song’s interpretation, but the heartbreak present in Samuel Clemen’s own words over the daughter for whom he placed the words on her tomb and the fact that her family never lived in the home again informs the heartache and despair that needs to be infused in this performance.
Back to a morning in October of 2020, Voices of Concinnity sang and recorded Dan Forrest’s setting of “Good Night, Dear Heart” on the porch of the Mark Twain House in Hartford where young Susy Clemens once played. The birds were chirping and the wind was blowing--a fitting accompaniment to the text. Here is the video:
When Voices of Concinnity recorded “Good Night, Dear Heart” for their album “Awaiting Golden Light” released in spring of 2024, the hardest part recording the song was allowing the heartache and emotion to be present on the non-text portion of the composition because the sopranos are floating a high note that we didn’t want to overpower the microphones. Concinnity’s amazing recording engineer, Jennifer Nulsen, suggested that the singers face away from the microphones and each other to open up the sound to serve the emotional needs of the music. As a result, the precision of that section is not spotless because the singers had no visual cues from each other of when to move in the music, singing only by feel. But the pain and sorrow of the song is infused in that “oh” section instead, reflecting the heartache of this story (listen here).
If you are looking to be moved by a choral music performance, please join us at our next live concert “Thinning of the Veil” on Saturday, November 2nd at 7:00pm in Tolland, Connecticut (more info here). At this concert, you will experience far more than beautiful choral music but an invitation to be in your feelings. Come experience choral music as a path to process loss, feel comfort, and find connection.
Written by Sarah Kaufold, Artistic Director of Consonare Choral Community and Voices of Concinnity. Detailed information on Mark Twain was found in original source material provided by Erin Bartram at the Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford, CT.