Five Centuries in One Evening: Programming Across Eras

One of the privileges of choral music is its reach across time. A single concert can begin with a motet composed in the fifteenth century and end with a piece finished last year, and the audience will hear both sung by the same voices in the same room. No other performing art covers this kind of span so naturally. An orchestra can do it in theory, but the instruments and the ensembles change so much across the centuries that the comparison always feels a little forced. A chorus, by contrast, is simply voices, and voices have not changed. The human throat that sang Josquin is the same instrument that sings Caroline Shaw.

Why the contrast works

Placing old and new music side by side does something that neither can do alone. An early Renaissance piece, spare and transparent, makes the harmonic richness of a Romantic work feel overwhelming when it arrives a few minutes later. A dissonant modern setting makes the consonance of a Bach chorale sound like a homecoming. These contrasts are not tricks. They are built into the way the ear processes sound, and a director who understands them can shape an evening so that each piece sets up the one that follows. The Early Music America organization has documented a growing interest among community ensembles in performing Renaissance and medieval works, precisely because audiences respond so strongly to hearing this older music in the context of a mixed program.

The rehearsal challenge

Programming across eras is exciting for the audience but demanding for the singers. Each period of choral music asks for a different vocal approach. The light, straight tone that suits a Palestrina motet is wrong for a Brahms part-song, which wants warmth and vibrato. The rhythmic precision needed for a Stravinsky mass is different again. A chorus preparing a cross-era program must shift gears repeatedly, sometimes within the same rehearsal, and the director must be clear about what each style requires. This is one of the reasons that blend, the ability of a section to match its sound to the music at hand, matters so much, a topic we examine in a piece on women in choral music.

Anchoring the program

A concert that simply alternates old and new at random will feel scattered. The best cross-era programs have an idea holding them together, a shared text, a liturgical theme, a journey through a single country’s music, or even a single emotion explored from different centuries. The idea does not need to be stated baldly. It can work quietly in the background, giving the audience a sense that the evening adds up to more than a playlist. Finding that thread is one of the most creative parts of a director’s job, and it is what separates a memorable concert from a competent one.

Editions and authenticity

Older music raises questions that newer music does not. What tempo did the composer intend when metronome markings did not yet exist? How large was the choir that first performed a work written for a cathedral in 1520? Should a modern chorus try to reproduce the original sound, or should it bring its own sensibility to the music? There are no final answers, but the questions are worth asking, because they deepen the singers’ understanding of what they are performing and give the audience a richer experience. The Music Sales Group, one of the largest publishers of classical music, offers critical editions of works from every major period, and choosing the right edition is itself a significant artistic decision.

What the audience takes home

A concertgoer who has just heard five centuries of choral music in a single sitting leaves with something more than a pleasant evening. They leave with a sense of the depth and continuity of human singing, a feeling that the voices they heard tonight are part of a line that stretches back centuries and will continue long after the last applause fades. That feeling is one of the best things a community chorus can offer, and it is reason enough to take the risk of a program that reaches across time.