Responsive Singing

Responsive singing - choral (ensemble) singing, in which the choir (ensemble) and the soloist alternately sound.

Content

Brief

According to the modern point of view (T. Bailey), responding singing was already used in the singing of psalms among ancient Jews ^[1] . The first evidence of spontaneous singing in the West is traditionally attributed to Isidore of Seville (VII century). Catholics responded ^{[2] to} various different versions of the oration (watch service), first of all, a large matins (responsorium prolixum), as well as gradual (otherwise referred to as responsorium missae, "Mass Response"), an offerorium , hallelujah masses . The solo sections of the responsive genres in Catholic life are written, as a rule, in a melismatic style ; their performance involves special (professional) training and technical skill of the singer. Responsive psalmody existed in ancient Byzantine life. In Russian Orthodox life, there is essentially no tradition of solo (magnificent, "pictorial") singing and there are no responsive genres / forms. To a certain extent, the prokimen can be considered the successor of the Byzantine responder psalmody, where the choral chant of the verses of the psalm alternates with the psalmody of the soloist.

Responsive singing, therefore, should be distinguished from the responder as a genre (form) in the Catholic office, although the origin of this “responder” is associated (including etymologically) with “responder singing”. In ethnomusicology, the term "respondent singing" has been used in a typological sense and now refers to the corresponding type of choral performance in various musical cultures - written and oral, for example, among the Nigerian Yoruba people , in Hindu kirtans , in spiritual African-Americans, in Nganasan ritual songs ^{[3 ]} and many other nations.

Notes

↑ Bailey T. Antiphon and Psalm in the Ambrosian Office. Ottawa, 1994.
↑ After the reforms of the Second Vatican Council , which established a simplified worship, technically sophisticated respondent chants are now performed mainly only by concert groups, they sound in audio recordings, but not in the church.
↑ O. E. Dobzhanskaya. Nganasan ritual songs performed by the heirs of the shaman (to the problem of imitating a shamanic ritual) . // Epic heritage and spiritual practices in the past and present: Sat. Articles / Res. ed. V.I. Kharitonova. M .: IEA RAS. 2013, p. 53-64. (Ethnological research on shamanism and other traditional beliefs and practices. T. 15, part 1). The method of shamanic singing, attributed by Dobzhansky to the "responder form", more precisely, can be described as a duet of the soloist and the "sing-along" imitating it.

Literature

Responsory // The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians. London, New York, 2001. (English)
Responsorial singing // Britannica

Links

[1] Bailey T. Antiphon and Psalm in the Ambrosian Office. Ottawa, 1994.

[2] After the reforms of the Second Vatican Council , which established a simplified worship, technically sophisticated respondent chants are now performed mainly only by concert groups, they sound in audio recordings, but not in the church.

[3] O. E. Dobzhanskaya. Nganasan ritual songs performed by the heirs of the shaman (to the problem of imitating a shamanic ritual) . // Epic heritage and spiritual practices in the past and present: Sat. Articles / Res. ed. V.I. Kharitonova. M .: IEA RAS. 2013, p. 53-64. (Ethnological research on shamanism and other traditional beliefs and practices. T. 15, part 1). The method of shamanic singing, attributed by Dobzhansky to the "responder form", more precisely, can be described as a duet of the soloist and the "sing-along" imitating it.