David Conte (SFCM Faculty; Chair) Composition Masterclass - Choral Chameleon Institute

David Conte Composition Masterclass at the Choral Chameleon Summer Institute, June 28th, 2019

00: Introduction: Biography: The Golden Age of American Public School Education

1:20 - Growing up in Cleveland; attending rehearsals with Robert Shaw and the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus as a 6-year old

2:50 - Bowling Green State University Religious Arts Competition - a path to  first publication  “Cantata Domino;” composition teacher Wallace DePue; John Ness Beck

4:30 - The difference between piano voice-leading and choral voice-leading; “What is the Grass” from “A Whitman Triptych” © E.C. Schirmer Music Company

6:00 - Principles of technique that transcend style and taste  - designing a building that won’t fall down

7:20 - Musical role models - learning from your ancestors, determining your composition role models, and duplicating what they did - their education

8:15 - Woody Allen’s moral lesson

9:25 - Modeling -determining salient features

10:00 - Analyzing by Listening - Kyrie: William Walton 

10:48 -  Successful relationships are based on agreed upon goals; Goals for oneself; for students; for music

13:00 - Memory and quotes

Randall Thompson - The relation of greatness to popularity

15:30 - Putting yourself in the seat of every singer - The fingers lead the brain and the ear, “Eliminating “choral booby traps” in your own work through singing each part while playing the other parts

17:42 - Determining tonal centers by ear - feeling it in your body

20:50 - The ability to perceive tonal centers is disappearing

24:00 - Finding “choral booby traps”, Piano voice leading is not vocal voice leading

26:20 - Most young choral composers greatly underestimate the difficulty of their pitch choices 

29:00 - St. Olaf sings “The Homecoming,” Anton Armstrong, conductor

33:15 - Principles of Palestrina’s Counterpoint that were relevant in the 16th century are still relevant in the 21st 

34:00 - Walton Kyrie - analyzing by listening

34:35 - What we already know about the text and its relation to form

38:00 - Film Music Composers vs. Concert Music Composers

39:00 - How the character of the Rubrics/Elements of Music are chosen by the composer to reflect the character of the text. and the  person communicating that text

39:30 - Walton as a great model for how to handle vocal dissonance

40:30 - Analyzing by listening - Walton “Kyrie”

42:30 - Playing of Walton “Kyrie” (Trinity College)

45:30 - Theory and Analysis follow practice;  they don’t precede it

46:00 - Stravinsky’s attitude toward Classical masses

48:00 - What is the tonic of the Walton Kyrie?

49:00 - Dominant as an intake of breath;  Tonic as a release of breath

52:30 - Copland discovers Boulanger in Fontainebleau: “Musical architecture is based on a series of harmonic relations.”

53:30 - Two models of Pedagogy:  Stravinsky as student of Rimsky;  Copland as student of Boulanger

56:00 - Back to Walton - what is the tonic?

57:00 - Structure and Ornament:  Diatonicism and Chromaticism

58:30 - Cross relations in Byrd and Walton

1:00:10 - "Encounter before you counter” - originality; Putting yourself in the “object”  relation to the “subject” of music

1:02:50 - The grid of Closely Related Keys; “The tonics of closely related keys are all the triads in a given key.” 

1:06:15 - Kyrie Formal Diagram

1:07:40 - Melodic motive structure of “Kyrie”

1:12:00 - Salient features of the Walton “Kyrie”

1:14:00 - Emotional and Spiritual maturity for artists 

1:15:00 - Musical lineage - William Austin

1:16:00 - Salient features of Kyrie

1:17:40 - Definition of texture; Being a teacher makes you organize your knowledge

1:20:30 - Grout’s formulation:  chord successions leading to chord progressions

1:22:40 - Final listening of Walton “Kyrie”

1:25:50 - Enharmonic spellings

“The future of civilization is dependent on correct spelling.”  Auden: “The chief duty of the poet is to protect the language from corruption. When words loose their meaning, people stop believing what they hear.” 

1:28:40 - Correct spelling is a case-by-case matter

1:30:30 - Walton as a model for vocal dissonance

1:31:30 - Allowing the singers to release their full energy

The difference between composing music that has to be “negotiated” rather than just “sung.” 

1:34:50 - Harry Whitney:  Kyrie - an example of a student work modeled after Walton 

1:35:35 - Ravel on modeling: “You cannot do better than repeat what has been well said…”

1:38:25 - Matt Curtis “Choral Tracks”

1:40:00 - recording of Whitney “Kyrie”

1:41:30 - How is Whitney “unwittingly unfaithful”  to the model?

1:43:00 - “True personality in music is revealed only through the deep knowledge of the personalities of others.

1:45:15 - “Deep knowledge” - what is “deep?”

1:46:15 - Many composers today are composing counterpoint that is layered rather than interactive

1:49:00 - Boulanger’s greatest gift as a teacher - The personification of Music

1:50:00 - Conrad Susa gives Vince Peterson an invaluable lesson