# Words and Music



## drpraetorus (Aug 9, 2012)

Replying to another thread got me thinking about this. 

I have come to the conclusion that music written with a vocal part is missing something if it is performed without that vocal part. This is of course most noticeable in music from opera. The Polovtsian Dances is, to me, flat without the chorus, but it is often performed that way. Ditto Ride of the Valkyries and Isoldes Liebestod. Even In the Hall of the Mountain King is less exciting without it's rarely heard chorus. 

What are your thoughts?


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

Vocals perhaps, but not the words themselves for me. Sometimes the music seems more profound when I don't know what the words are, as when they are in an unfamiliar language or are wordless vocalizing.


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## drpraetorus (Aug 9, 2012)

Polovtsian Dances
With Chorus




Without Chorus





In the Hall of the Mountain King
With Chorus




Without Chorus





Ride of the Valkyries
With Vocals (and apparently a playground teeter-totter)




Without Vocals, although the best such version there is. George Szell, Cleveland Orchestra





Liebestod
With Vocals (Flagstad, Norman)








Orchestral


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

I wholly agree (except about that damned after the fact tacked-on chorus in Faure's Pavanne) and think the reductions just that much duller to hardly worth the paper they are written upon.

Ravel's two orchestral suites from Daphnis et Chloe -- suites one and two are nearly, together, the full length ballet -- are masterly, but I would never listen to other than the full-length ballet with its wordless chorus.

Few people have any idea that the second and fourth of the five pieces from Prokofiev's Lieutenant Kije suite were originally songs; the Romance and the Troika. Once I heard those, I could no longer go back to the strictly symphonic version most often played.









Ditto for Stravinsky's Pulcinella, the full length ballet (_imo_ marringly reduced when it went to suite form) includes three singers who have interspersed soli, duets, and at least one trio. The suite eliminates the singers, tweaks the orchestration to "replace" them, and I don't care for that at all. The same is true for me of the suite from his opera, Le Rossignol, the suite called "Song of the nightingale."

Conversely, I'm seriously turned off when I hear, for example, a Debussy song played with an instrument substituted for voice (It is mainly violinists, I've noticed, who are prone to demanding, commissioning, and playing these little abominations.)

Those reductions without voice / chorus, are of course pragmatic, allowing concert performance (the suites to fit nicely on a program with at least two other works) and avoid any budget costs beyond the regular -- no vocal soloist(s) need be hired. I'm pretty much against them all.

[[ Re:text. I'm one who does not care how good the text is, or how important the content of that text is, at least initially: if the music does not communicate the near whole to me, I do not care how great the text is. Even when in my native language, I barely perceive the words on first listening. It is the music which has to win me, including the music of the voice: If that communicates something to me, I will then look into what is being sung. ]]


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## Jovian (May 4, 2013)

Yes the vocals are very very important. Words maybe important in some cases for me but not in others.


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

drpraetorus said:


> Replying to another thread got me thinking about this.
> 
> I have come to the conclusion that music written with a vocal part is missing something if it is performed without that vocal part. This is of course most noticeable in music from opera. The Polovtsian Dances is, to me, flat without the chorus, but it is often performed that way. Ditto Ride of the Valkyries and Isoldes Liebestod. Even In the Hall of the Mountain King is less exciting without it's rarely heard chorus.
> 
> What are your thoughts?


The human voice is probably the the most expressive musical instrument, so rearranging something without that is likely to lose some expression in most instances.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

I so often do not pay attention to sung texts I would be hypocritical to say I missed them, but the composer has set those words, meant for the instrument of the human voice. Every consonant and syllable, therefore, is as critical to the overall musical texture as an intended inflection of any of the instruments, also written for specifically to their timbrel qualities in each and every register, articulation, etc. I'm also very strong on not singing anything in other than in the language in which it was written, for exactly the same reason.

There is more than a little missing when the vocal part(s) have been arranged out.

Ravel's Daphis et Chloe suites (comprising, together, nearly the entire full-length ballet) are brilliantly re-orchestrated for readier and more practical concert performance (done of course for revenue as much as any other reason) but even a master orchestrator like Ravel cannot make the instruments a satisfactory substitute for a _wordless_ chorus.

I cannot accept any substitutes in this musical area -- including all those ghastly "arrangements" of art songs as rendered by piano and (violin, flute, etc.), freshly reminded because someone lately posted the meditation from Thais in a violin rendering -- something is more than missing, and no matter how great or moving the original, the arrangements end up with my finding them insipid as compared to the original.

Then again, I have more than a little quibble with most transcriptions for very similar reasons, even the better ones done by the composer of the original work, whether voice is involved or not. There is many an orchestration of what was once a piano piece I also consider far down from second best.

Give it to me straight or give me something else which is also straight up what it is, I suppose is where I stand.

Add P.s. I see I've now responded to this question twice. I will say I do feel strongly enough that I feel the question worth a second reinforcing comment (and I do), rather than admit to spaciness


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## Tristan (Jan 5, 2013)

Agreed. I do view the human voice as another instrument (wordless or not) and some pieces are simply not the same when one of the instruments is cut. Daphnis and Chloe is definitely what comes to mind first. I had only heard versions sans the chorus for a long time; when I finally heard a version with the chorus in it, I was blown away. It was certainly "missing" something.


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## Andreas (Apr 27, 2012)

Peteris Vasks's new cello concerto, written for Sol Gabetta, includes wordless singing by the soloist. Should make for interesting comparisons if performed by a male cellist.

Finladia is quite a different piece when performed with chorus.

I must say I'd probably prefer instrumental versions generally (as in the Valkyries and Liebestod examples). But that's because I have some reservations about singing in general.


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## Guest (Sep 17, 2013)

Andreas said:


> [...] But that's because I have some *reservations about singing in general*.


I too used to have reservations, never having been a great fan of the WAM* operatic voice (too much vibrato, too much ego, too much, period. Which is why I'm an Emma Kirkby fan.)
But then I discovered how the voice can be used in other ways (mainly via electroacoustic transformation as starters) and then got hit between the eyes by a work called *Anticredos* by UK composer *Trevor Wishart*. It is a work for six amplified voices and percussion. It's impossible to find this on YouTube as far as I can see, but hereafter is a link to a CD release (featuring _Anticredos_ and another electroacoustic piece of his called _Red Bird_) where you can hear a very short extract. 
Another piece that uses the voice in ways that would terrify most opera lovers is the *Sequenza III* for solo voice by *Berio*. In the _Sequenza_ there are words, and parts of words, but they are used as springboards for extended vocal technique and not to convey any particular semantic meaning. It is (like the Wishart piece) using the voice as an incredible instrument and sound producer.
http://www.allmusic.com/album/trevor-wishart-red-bird-anticredos-mw0000628649
[*WAM = western art-music]


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

TalkingHead said:


> I too used to have reservations, never having been a great fan of the WAM* operatic voice (too much vibrato, too much ego, too much, period. Which is why I'm an Emma Kirkby fan.)
> But then I discovered how the voice can be used in other ways (mainly via electroacoustic transformation as starters) and then got hit between the eyes by a work called *Anticredos* by UK composer *Trevor Wishart*. It is a work for six amplified voices and percussion. It's impossible to find this on YouTube as far as I can see, but hereafter is a link to a CD release (featuring _Anticredos_ and another electroacoustic piece of his called _Red Bird_) where you can hear a very short extract.
> Another piece that uses the voice in ways that would terrify most opera lovers is the *Sequenza III* for solo voice by *Berio*. In the _Sequenza_ there are words, and parts of words, but they are used as springboards for extended vocal technique and not to convey any particular semantic meaning. It is (like the Wishart piece) using the voice as an incredible instrument and sound producer.
> http://www.allmusic.com/album/trevor-wishart-red-bird-anticredos-mw0000628649
> [*WAM = western art-music]


Adding to TalkingHead's above fine mentions:
Berio:
Visage




Sinfonia, especially the third movement









Stockhausen ~ a.o. ~
Stimming
Gesang der Jünglinge 





British composer Jonathan Harvey uses voice, electronically manipulated voice, electronics and acoustic instruments in some of his pieces.
ADD: Harvey's _Vivos Voco_ -- which I learned of via Mahlerian's list of pieces in the thread, "Works that need more attention"


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