Scan 6
Musical Courier 1925-12-17: Vol 91 Iss 25, 1925
59 lines. Read by computer on 29 September 2026. No printed page number was found. See the scan on archive.org.
1December 17, 1925
3DR. CARL'S MOTET CHOIR
4How It Is Trained and What It Has Accomplished.
6It is increasingly becoming the custom in America for churches to maintain choirs capable of giving all of the standard choral works from Palestrina and Bach to the most complex and difficult moderns. Some of these choirs have let their work be heard outside of their own fixed localities, others have preferred to maintain their simple standing as church choirs, associating their musical offerings with the regular services of the church and giving freely the delights of the sacred classics to all who have cared to go to church at the appointed time.
8One of the pioneers in this field of America's notable musical development was Dr. William C. Carl, known originally as a brilliant concert organist, exponent of the far-famed French school of organ playing, and known subsequently as founder and director of the Guilman Organ School, an institution of learning second to none, with graduates holding prominent organ positions in every section of the country and probably in nearly every state in the Union, so numerous are they and so successful have they become.
10During all of the time that has been occupied by this important work Dr. Carl has been organist and choir director of the First Presbyterian Church in the fashionable district of lower Fifth Avenue near Washington Square—a church of wealth and influence, in which three congregations are merged, where prominent preachers are heard.
12No less than twenty-five years ago Dr. Carl had already built himself a choir adequate to the demands of choral productions of a high order, and year after year the great oratorios and motets have been given with a perfection and precision that left nothing to be desired. The present status is a name by which all of the past years may be judged. Nothing has changed. Then as now the clergy—at present the Rev. Dr. George Alexander and the Rev. Thomas Guthrie Speers—wants the best in church music and stands back of Dr. Carl and his work with solid moral and material support. Then as now the officers of the church have been in complete unity as to the music director's plans and ideas. Then as now the soloists have been the best obtainable.
14Today the president of the board of trustees is Arthur Curtiss James, a man much interested in music, and the soloists are Olive Marshall, soprano; Amy Ellerman, contralto; Ernest Davis, tenor, and Edgar Schofield, bass.
16But all of this would not have guaranteed results had it not been for the enthusiasm and efficiency of Dr. Carl. He it was who had big ideas and the power to carry them out. He it was who brought back with him from his student years in France, and his intimate contact with French musical conditions, visions of what might be done in America with the proper effort and the proper backing.
18His choir, which is called The Motet Choir, has long been famous as a model and an example of the possibilities of and this writer got hold of him and wanted to know how it is done—speaking of choir training, not of golf.
20Here, in as few words as possible, is his reply. In the first place there are four rehearsals a week. With less than that the work could not be accomplished. The members of the choir, and of course the soloists, are paid. The soloists are present at several of the rehearsals.
22That is the solid foundation upon which this work rests. As for the actual training, Dr. Carl makes his singers sing their parts separately without accompaniment. Each of the four choral parts, soprano, alto, tenor and bass, is learned singly so that the group of singers comprising this part know the music so well that they need no guidance or support for its proper rendition.
24This requires preliminary work in the singing of intervals. There is a great deal of such drilling, and much of it is detached. That is, after singing one note there is a pause after which the singers must take the next note squarely, not sliding to it. It is, as Dr. Carl expresses it, like hitting a nail on the head.
26After this preliminary interval study, and the parts of some motet or oratorio having been learned separately without instrumental support, the ensemble work is taken up, and this, again, is done without the instrument. The result of such careful training is to create in the choir a spirit of security and self-reliance which nothing can phase, and Dr. Carl, who is both choir director and organist, finds himself free to play whatever elaborate accompaniments the composers have conceived for their works without fear of disturbing the precision and balance of the choir's interpretation of the score.
28The singers in the choir, all of them, have trained voices. They have all of them studied singing with competent teachers, and the majority of them are still studying. This work is reinforced by Dr. Carl's teaching, especially in the matter of diction and in rhythm. This latter point is made a specialty of, so that no member of the choir will ever anticipate a note, or retard it, taking it too soon or too late, but will always strike it firmly on the exact beat.
30Dr. Carl also makes a specialty of training his singers in concentration so that they acquire the habit of fixed attention upon the work at hand, not the all too frequent habit of attention to their private concerns, conversation during rehearsal, and so on.
32The choir, in addition to the oratorios, sings Palestrina, Vittoria, De Lassus, Gibbons, Purcell, and other works of Ecclesiastical times, and the moderns, including the works of Russians and Americans.
34This year's list of Sunday evening oratorios includes Stabat Mater, Elijah, Messiah, Handel's Samson, Mozart's Requiem.
36(Continued on page 37)
38DR. WILLIAM C. CARL,
39organist and choir director.
41INTIMATE AND UNFAMILIAR SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF BIZET
42By Clarence Lucas
44I am conscious of a faint odour of heliotrope as I write. It rises from a spray of faded flowers which bloomed a few short weeks ago in the garden of the house in which Georges Bizet died, fifty years ago last June.
46I happened to read in a book by Henry Gaurier-Villars that Bizet said in a letter to Paul Lacombe: "Je vais terminer Carmen à Bougival et y commencer, peut-être y finir, Sainte Genevieve, oratorio en trois parties sur lequel je compte beaucoup."
48Bizet, in fact, went to Bougival, and finished the Carmen score there. After Carmen's failure at Paris (March, 1875) the composer again went to Bougival, was taken ill and died a few weeks afterwards (June 3, 1875) in another house in that village. The oratorio of Sainte Geneviève, on which Bizet said he counted so much, was never begun. Both houses are still standing in Bougival, a picturesque village between Paris and Saint Germain, where Debussy was a boy at the time of Bizet's death.
50No French musician was more methodically trained than Bizet. He won first prize for solfège at the Conservatoire when a mere child. When about fifteen he won the first prize for piano playing. At seventeen he won first prize for fugue composition, and first prize for organ playing. At nineteen he won the coveted Prix de Rome, the first prize of composition, which meant three years' study abroad at the expense of the French government. Berlioz said that since the days of Liszt and Mendelssohn he had not seen any one who could read at sight at the piano a full orchestral score with the facility of Bizet.
52Yet Bizet was born for the theater. He himself said he could not even begin a piano concerto. He wrote a so-called symphony for orchestra which was entirely devoid of all symphonic sense. One critic humorously said that it was about as much of a hobby to Bizet as violin playing was to the famous painter Ingres.
54As soon as Bizet was dead and gone where the success or failure of his works were of no importance to him, his Carmen began its extraordinary career throughout the world. By 1883, that is to say, eight years after its production, it had been performed more often than all the works of Wagner and Weber combined. It is without doubt the greatest glory of the French Opera Comique. Shortly before his death, Bizet expressed the wish that he might reach the Grand Opera one day. Had he done so he could not have added to his renown.
56(This is one of a series of articles by Clarence Lucas. By visiting little known haunts of famous musicians and personally taking the photographs he uncovers new and practically unknown biographical facts.—Editor's Note.)
58(1) The house at Bougival in which Carmen was finished, March, 1875; the tall poplar trees are characteristic of French landscapes. (2) The narrow garden of the house in which Bizet died, June 3, 1875; the American pianist, Marguerite Morgan, is standing beside the house. (3) The last door through which Bizet passed; a mark beside the window shows the room in which he died. (4) A view of the Seine from Bizet's garden. (5) Bizet's grave in the cemetery of Pere Lachaise, Paris—a silhouette against the setting sun.
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