Chorus types - mixed women's men's. Choir

With itza songs - so Mitrofan Pyatnitsky called folk songs with love and tenderness. The famous collector of Russian folklore became the founder of the first folk choir in Russia. The history of the team was studied by Natalya Letnikova.

Peasant - this is how the Pyatnitsky Choir proudly calls itself at concerts. And the stage premiere of the group was in 1911. And immediately in the hall of the Noble Assembly - the current House of Unions. Folk music as a high art. It was the first time.

"The Lamentations of the Weepers". Such an item in the concert poster could not disregard the concert of the Great Russian peasants, specially ordered from the Voronezh and Ryazan provinces. Folk songs and epics accompanied by ancient instruments. A real sensation.

The first part of the choir

“They sing as best they can” is the main principle of the peasant choir. "Song Artel" did not even rehearse.

Peasants just came from their villages and sang. Between this and then. Like at home at work, or in the field, or in the evening on the mound.

Pyatnitsky appreciated this originality. And he was not alone. Fans of the choir include Fyodor Chaliapin, Sergei Rachmaninov, Antonina Nezhdanova, Ivan Bunin, Vladimir Lenin. By order of Lenin, the singing peasants moved to Moscow. They began to work in factories, plants and sing with a permanent composition.

The choir received the name Pyatnitsky in 1927, after the death of the founder. The legacy of the musician - more than 400 songs recorded on the phonograph, a unique collection of folk instruments and costumes. But the main thing is the attention to the talents of the people, which made it possible to create a unique team.

During the Great Patriotic War, the choir performed at the forefront as a front-line concert brigade. And the song "Oh, my fogs ..." becomes the anthem of the partisan movement. On May 9, 1945, the artists sang on Red Square in honor of the Great Victory. The team carefully keeps letters from the front.

They also keep traditions. Folklore is still in the repertoire. Lipetsk choruses are performed exclusively in the dialect of the Lipetsk province, Bryansk - in Bryansk, Vladimir - in Vladimir. There are also songs recorded by Pyatnitsky at the beginning of the last century.

Every musical phenomenon has followers. Voronezh, Ural, Severny, Ryazan, Omsk, Volga… choirs appeared in almost every region. And abroad. The Polish ensemble "Mazowsze", the Czech "Sluch" - echoes of the noble cause of Mitrofan Pyatnitsky.

In 2008, the Pyatnitsky Choir was recognized as the National Treasure of the country. And also the Order of the Red Banner of Labor, Friendship of Peoples, the government medal "Patriot of Russia" and an informal award - a nominal star on the "Avenue of Stars" in Moscow.

Today, about 90 artists from 30 Russian regions sing, dance and play in Pyatnitsky. The main selection criterion is talent. To work in the most frequently touring band in the world, you need great talent. It is no coincidence that the longest number of the choir ... bow out!

The concept of the type of choir as a specific composition and as a specific composition of choral music. Choir types. Characteristics of their vocal-technical and performance capabilities. Examples.

Choir types. Determining the type of choir and choral score. Definition of the term "choir party". Complete set of choral parts with corresponding solo singing voices. The quantitative composition of the choirs and related performance possibilities. Examples of choral compositions of various types.

Various options for the location of the choir.

Terminology on the topic:

Homogeneous choir- a choir consisting of the same type of voices (male, female or children).

Children's choir- homogeneous. There are junior, middle and senior choirs, in general from 6 to 15 years old.

incomplete choir- a mixed choir in which there is no part.

mixed choir- choir, consisting of 4 parts: Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Bass.

The consignment- part of the choir singing in the same voices.

division(divisi) is a musical term that refers to the division of one part into two or more in the score of the choir.

7. Build in the choir.

Definition of the concept of "musical structure". The historical aspect of the emergence and modification of various musical systems, called musical tunings.

The structure of the choir is one of the main elements of choral sonority.

Disclosure of the concept of "zone system". Confirmation of the main conclusions of P.G.Chesnokov in the scientific research and works of Academician N.A.Garbuzov about the zone nature of the vocal system.

Melodic (horizontal) and harmonic (vertical) tuning. Melodic structure as the achievement of unison in the sound of the choral part through the awareness of modal inclinations and the laws of zonal intonation of steps and intervals. Harmonic system and its relationship with the melodic system. Chord intonation. The development of auditory data in singers. The active nature of vocal hearing and its relationship with muscle sensations. The relationship between breathing and tuning, vocals and tuning. Dependence of order achievement on the musical-expressive means of the score, tempo, dynamics, etc. Difficulties in order achievement due to working conditions and other external factors.

Terminology on the topic:

Chorus system- one of the main elements of choral sonority, which determines the intonational purity of singing.

intonation- conscious reproduction of music. sound by voice or instrument. Accurate intonation relies on modal connections.

Fork- a sound source device that serves as a standard of pitch when tuning musical instruments and in singing. The reference tone frequency for the first octave is 440 Hz.

Ensemble in the choir.

The concept of an ensemble in its various meanings, including structural and organizational. Ensemble as one of the main elements of choral sonority. The psychological basis of the ensemble. The ensemble is private and shared. Technological types of the ensemble: by sound quality (vocal), by strength (dynamic), in time (rhythmic, tempo). Ensemble and tuning dependence. Vocal ensemble as a unity of vocal position, articulatory form and timbre. The dynamic ensemble includes: a natural and artificial ensemble, an ensemble in conditions of various textures, an ensemble of a soloist and a choir, an ensemble of a choir and instrumental accompaniment. Rhythmic ensemble, its dependence on metrorhythm, tempo, texture, etc. Tempo ensemble. Art ensemble, its influence on the technological ensemble.

Terminology on the topic:

Choir Ensemble(ensemble - together) is one of the main components of choral sonority.

Dynamics in music- the strength of the sound, loudness and their changes.

Pace- the speed of alternation of metric parts in music. The tempo is closely related to the character, style, genre, as well as the personality of the performer.

Meter- the order of alternation of strong and weak beats in music.

Metronome- a device for determining the tempo of a piece of music.

Rhythm- temporal organization of musical sounds and their combinations.

Syncope- discrepancy between metric and rhythmic stresses.

Accompaniment- accompaniment by one or more instruments, as well as by the orchestra of the solo part (singer, instrumentalist, choir).

Texture- a warehouse, a device for a musical fabric, a set of its elements. And the elements of texture, what it consists of: melody, accompaniment, bass, middle voices and undertones. The texture can be very diverse: homophonic, harmonic, polyphonic, etc.

Such a choir can perform only those works in which no divisions(divisi) in parties. Choirs with a minimum composition of singers used to be quite widespread. They fully satisfied the practice of conducting church services, and later took part in concert performances in noble salons.

Currently, the minimum composition of the choir is considered to be 16-20 people.

Smaller collectives are usually called ensembles .

It is customary to be guided by the same norms in the practice of homogeneous choirs.

· Average composition of the choir

suggests the possibility dividing each batch into at least two . Therefore, it must have at least 24 people.

Usually these choirs have from 30 to 60 people.

Performing Opportunities! middle choir are quite significant. The insufficiency of the quantitative composition of the middle choir is revealed in the performance of large works with a large orchestra, as well as polyphonic and multi-choir compositions. In all other cases, this choir can successfully cope with the performing repertoire. It is known that the Leipzig choir, in which Bach worked and in which most of his works were first performed, had a composition of 20-25 people. The famous Sistine Chapel included 15-20 adult singers. A good example of the possibilities of the average composition of the choir, staffed by highly qualified singers, is the chamber choir of O. Shaw. This ensemble, consisting of 31 singers from a small chamber orchestra, has an extremely wide range of performances. His repertoire includes Negro spirituals, various works for a cappella choir, such major works as Bach's Mass in B Minor. The choir successfully performs both at small and the largest concert venues.

A serious mistake is made by those leaders who, in pursuit of the number of lose their quality when accepting singers in the choir. The presence in the choir of singers who do not have sufficient data hinders the growth of the team, reduces creative interest, and undermines organizational foundations.

· big choir should have such a composition that would provide him with the performance of any choral work. In such choirs, usually from 80 to 120 people.

Here is the data on the numerical composition of some choirs:

State Academic Russian Choir of the USSR - 100.

Grand Choir of the All-Union Radio - 95.

Leningrad Academic Chapel - 90.

Red Banner them. Alexandrov Song and Dance Ensemble of the Soviet Army- 100.

State Male Choir of the Estonian SSR - 80.

State Academic Choir of the Latvian SSR - 80.

State Russian Republican Chapel of the RSFSR - 80.

State Honored Academic Chapel of the Ukrainian SSR "Dumka" - 80.

· The maximum composition of the choir considered to be 120-130 people A further increase in the permanent composition of the choir does not contribute to the improvement of its performing qualities. The choir loses performance flexibility, mobility, rhythmic distinctness, the ensemble becomes vague, the timbre of the parts is less interesting.

For speeches at solemn meetings, song festivals, demonstrations create numerous

· combined choirs , uniting dozens of amateur and professional teams . So, at traditional song festivals in (the Baltic republics, consolidated choirs consisting of willows perform 30 - 40 thousand performers.

For consolidated choirs, not very complex, “catchy”, “poster” works are usually selected. Quite often, these choirs also perform rather difficult works of large form. In a number of cities in the Volga region and the Urals, for example, large combined choirs and orchestras performed Sviridov's Pathetic Oratorio, and the combined male choir, which performed at a song festival in Riga in 1965, performed E. Kapp's complex polyphonic work "Northern Coast".

There are cases when up to a hundred or more thousand people took part in mass singing. Thus, the author of this book had the opportunity to direct the choir, which consisted of 130 thousand participants (VI World Youth Festival).

Leadership of thousands of choirs has its own characteristics and difficulties. These difficulties, mainly of an acoustic order, are associated primarily with the establishment of a rhythmic ensemble.

mixed choir formed as a result of the connection of a children's or women's choir with a male one; in a mixed choir - two groups of voices: the upper one is female or children's voices, the lower one is male voices.
A typical composition of a four-part mixed choir has soprano, alto, tenor and bass parts. An example of such a composition is the choir from Act I of the opera Ruslan and Lyudmila by Glinka - “Health and Glory to the Bright Prince”:

A. Incomplete composition of the mixed choir
A mixed choir may not include all of the named parties, but only some of them. For example, a choir may have altos, tenors, and basses; or soprano, alto and tenor; any combination of one of the choral parts of the upper group can be combined with one of the parts of the lower group (soprano + tenor, alto + bass, alto + tenor, etc.). Such compositions form an incomplete mixed choir.

B. Doubling voices in a mixed choir
Depending on the texture of the piece of music, a mixed choir can sing in unison (rare cases) or in an octave, the so-called octave unison (common case); can also sing in two voices, in the latter case the soprano part is usually doubled into an octave by the tenor part, and the alto part by the bass part. All monophonic and two-voiced choral works, therefore, can be performed by a mixed choir with octave doublings.
When a mixed choir performs a piece of music written for three voices, the most common duplication technique is octave doubling between first sopranos and first tenors, between second sopranos and second tenors, between altos and basses.
An example of doubling voices in unison and octave is the following excerpts from the opera "Prince Igor" by I. Borodin:

B. Possibilities of a mixed choir in connection with the division of voices

It was said above that the mixed choir basically has four parts. However, the possibilities of a mixed choir far exceed this typical presentation. If in choral scores designed for a homogeneous composition, the division reaches four, five, six, and even seven voices, then it is not difficult to imagine the possibility of dividing the parts of a mixed choir that has two homogeneous choirs.
Let us consider some combinations resulting from the division of voices of a mixed choir, adopting the following conventions for this: voices are denoted by letters (C - soprano, A - altos, T - tenor, B - basses); the numbers next to the letter indicate the part being played - the first or second, etc. For example, C 1 indicates the first sopranos, C 2 - the second sopranos, etc.

1. (C 1 + C 2) + A + T + B
2. C + (A 1 + A2) + T + B
3. C + A + (T 1 + T 2) + B
4. C + A + T + (B 1 + B 2)

1. (C 1 + C 2) + (A 1 + A 2) + T + B
2. (C 1 + C 2) + A + (T 1 + T 2) + B
3. (C 1 + C 2) + A + T + (B 1 + B 2)
4. C + (A 1 + A 2) + (T 1 + T 2) + B
5. C+(A 1 +A 2)+T+(B 1 +B 2)
6. C+A+(T 1 +T 2) + (B 1 +B 2)

1. (C 1 + C2) + (A 1 + A 2) + (T 1 + T 2) + B
2. C+(A 1 +A2)+(T 1 +T 2)+(B 1 +B 2)
3. (C 1 + C2) + A + (T 1 + T 2) + (B 1 + B 2)
4. (C 1 + C2) + (A 1 + A 2) + T + (B 1 + B 2)

(C 1 + C 2) + (A 1 + A 2) + (T 1 + T 2) + (B 1 + B 2)

Other combinations are also possible. It is not uncommon for a piece of music to be performed for two or even three choirs.
Thus, according to the number of voices for which the performed work is designed, a mixed choir can be one-voice, two-voice, three-, four-, five-, six-, seven-, eight-voice, etc.

There are many polyphonic choirs in Russian musical literature. We recommend that the student analyze Taneyev's choirs, op. 27.

Mixed choir. A full mixed choir, which includes all choral parts - sopranos, altos, tenors, basses, is rightfully considered the most perfect type of choir group with unique vocal and technical capabilities. Thanks to these possibilities, works of varying degrees of complexity are available to the mixed choir. The general range is "la" of the contra-octave - "to" the third octave.

A wide range of timbre characteristics of parts allows the choirmaster to achieve their various combinations. The virtuoso performance of the soprano part is complemented by the depth of the sound of the bass part. The presence of bass-octavists gives the choir a powerful, voluminous sound. The role of harmonic filling is performed by the middle parts of tenors and altos.

The mixed choir has unique dynamic possibilities. The works of a chanted, wide character are distinguished by a special beauty of sound in a mixed choir.

All professional choirs are mostly mixed. It is for this type of choirs that many works of different volume, content, style and means of musical expression have been written.

Incomplete mixed choirs (youth) are extremely rare. They exist as educational groups in choir schools and less often as amateur groups in general education schools and secondary specialized educational institutions. When working with a youth choir, it is necessary to take into account its specifics. Youthful singing requires a sparing vocal load. Forced singing on the extreme sounds of the range should be avoided. The repertoire for youth choirs consists of works with a lighter form of arrangements.

Homogeneous male choir: composition - Tenor part, Bass part, possibly the presence of octavists. In the practice of choral performance, professional male choirs are extremely rare. The range of the male choir is "la" of the counteroctave - "do" of the second octave. The lower sounds of the range are entrusted to octavists. The upper segment of the range is sometimes performed by falsetto tenors. The leading part of the male choir is the tenor part, which, as a rule, performs the main melodic line.

Works for the male choir can be found in the choral works of the old masters (Lasso, Palestrina), in Western and Russian choral classics (Schumann, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, etc.). For this composition of the choir, excellent adaptations of folk songs were made. Orthodox spiritual music and opera literature is rich in works for the male choir.

Women's choir: composition - Soprano part, Viola part. The sound of the women's choir is marked by a peculiar timbre richness and sufficiently large technical and performance capabilities. The general range of the female choir is "fa" of the small - "si" of the second, "do" of the third octave. The most commonly used operating range is from "salt" of a small octave to "la" of the second octave.

A fairly large number of original classical and modern choral compositions have been written for the women's choir.

The quantitative composition of the choir

The norm of the minimum composition of a mixed choir is 12-16 people. Currently, the minimum composition of the choir is considered to be 16-24 people. Smaller numbers are usually called ensembles (currently 12-20 people. The average composition of the choir of at least 24 (32-40) participants suggests the division of each choral part into two. Large choir - 80-120 people.

St. Petersburg Choir Chapel - 90 people, Great Choir of the All-Union Radio - 95 people, Estonian State Male Choir - 80 people, State Russian Republican Chapel. A. Yurlov - 80 people.

Maximum composition of the choir - 120-130 people.

Consolidated choirs in the Baltic States - up to 10 thousand people.

P.G. Chesnokov: “With three skilled singers, it is possible to form a choral part with a minimal composition. The smallest number of singers for each part is three.

Soprano - 3

Violas - 3

Tenor - 3

Bass - 3

Total - 12 people- we call such a choir a small mixed choir (incomplete choir - pure four-part).

When the number of singers in each part of the choir doubles (and in the bass part triples), it will turn into an average mixed choir with the least number of singers (full)

First Sopranos - 3

Second Sopranos - 3

First Alts - 3

Second Alts - 3

First Tenors - 3

Second Tenors 3

Baritones - 3