Sowash: Alleluia for SATB chorus.

For a composer, the world of music is divided into two hemispheres:  instrumental music and vocal music.  The skills and experiences that prove effective in one of these two hemispheres are generally less valuable in the other.

Most composers seem to choose one of these hemispheres as their dwelling place, occasionally visiting the other.

There is communication between the two hemispheres as, for example, when teachers of instruments tell their students to “make it sing.”  Or when choral directors prod choristers to make instrumental effects, such as staccato or legato.

But the two hemispheres are separated chiefly by the presence or absence of words.

Words are the singer’s bane, a challenge of which instrumentalists know nothing.  Singers must often struggle with vowels that pinch the voice and with consonants that simply cannot be sung.  Try singing an “S” or a “J.”  Or a word like “which.”  You will quickly see the challenge and understand why listeners often find it difficult to understand a text that is being sung, which is why texts are often printed in concert programs or church bulletins.

Sung words have specific meanings which the singers must respect, express, convey.  Blessed are the instrumentalists! — for they make music with no such concerns.

Of course, singers don’t have to sing words.  Vocal music can be wordless.  A composer can ask singers to intone no other sound than “ahhh” or “oooh.”  Think of the vocalises by Rachmaninoff and Villa Lobos or the wordless women’s chorus in Debussy’s Sirènes.

Then there is the Alleluia.  Four lovely vowels.  An affirmation, yes, but only vaguely meaningful for most folks.  What does the word mean?  Well, it’s an adaptation into English of the Hebrew phrase “hallalu-ya” which means “praise ye Jehovah."

When I was at Lexington Junior High School in 1962, yy 7th grade choir & general music teacher, Roderick Evans, started me composing when, having noticed me messing around on the piano before class began, coaxed me into writing a little Alleluia.

“What’s an Alleluia,” I asked.  “It’s a piece of music where the choir sings that one word, ‘Alleluia,’ over and over again and then, at the end, they sing ‘Amen’ and that’s it.  When you get home after school, fool around on the piano and, tomorrow, bring me four notes, one for each syllable: Al-le-lu-ia.”  I did as he asked.  He said my four notes were good and he suggested what should come next.  Within a few weeks I had written my first real piece of music (actually, he did most of the work, as I hadn't yet mastered music notation) and Mr. Evans led our choir in the premiere performance in the school's annual spring concert.  It was a big deal for me.  I’ve been composing music ever since.

Years later, in 2000, I returned to the Alleluia, writing for our Mt. Auburn Presbyterian Church’s chancel choir here in Cincinnati.  It’s a two-part canon, a melody sung by the combined sopranos and altos, the combined tenors and basses echoing the melody alwys a measure behind.  Our director, my good friend Chris Miller, had the choir stand in a ring around the sanctuary, surrounding the seated congregation, rendering the piece ‘stereophonically.’  ‘Surround-sound’ in church!  Very cool.

To hear the Cincinnati Camerata under the direction of Chris Miller singing my Alleluia, click here:
http://www.sowash.com/recordings/mp3/alleluia.mp3

To see a PDF of the score, click here:
http://www.sowash.com/recordings/mp3/alleluia.pdf