Harvard Glee Club: Students, Alumni, and Significant Others:
When I was a youth, I went to church every Sunday. I sang many hymns. One of them was, “Blessed be the Tie that Binds”. How meaningful these words are now to me! How happy I am to see you, and to hear you, and to celebrate with you the founding of the oldest college chorus in the United States: the Harvard Glee Club. I am deeply honored to be your conductor.
Today’s Glee Club continues the tradition you all know: men who sing with spirit, harmoniously dedicated to the well being, musical excellence, and esprit de corps of HGC. Each year, over time we coalesce into a community of kindred spirits. We learn that the whole transcends the sum of the parts, and therefore, with unity, comes joy.
We work together to achieve unity of ensemble through unity of pitch, duration, timbre, and intensity. Tenor I’s, bass I’s, tenor II’s, bass II’s try to get the right notes at the right time, in tune, together, in balance, with matched vowels. Establishing this elusive goal takes nearly 90% of our time – but it is the foundation that enables us to produce, at our best, a unified, clear, compelling, beautifully matched sound-continuum, through which the composers’ conceptualization is heard.
A composer’s ideas are expressed by a notation system symbolizing pitch and time. The Glee Club sings about seven centuries of choral genres: from chant to motets, masses, magnificats, requiems, cantatas, oratorios, madrigals, chansons, lieder, and folk songs. In some of this music there may be little or no indication of the elements of expression: tempo, phrasing, dynamics, articulation, rubato, or word-nuance. In other words - we have to figure this out. And that is challenging, and fun!
Through rehearsing (re-hearing) we begin to comprehend the musical gestures implied by the notation. With this knowledge we can bring communicative, aural life to the designated symbols of pitch and time. While music from the mid-18th century to the present is often filled with explicit signs of expression, in the full gamut of choral repertoire from the 21st century back to Gregorian chant, there consistently remains a treasure-trove of musical gestures to be discovered, inherent in the composers’ compositional building blocks: harmony, melody, rhythm, texture, and instrumentation.
The “Hunting and Gathering” of the composer’s artistic vision can be an inspiring educational experience. Through this “anthropological expedition” the men and I begin to see how the composer was inspired by the text. We spend a lot of time asking ourselves the “why” question. “Why did the composer write that note, that harmony; why choose to project the text through that particular texture, that instrumentation, or with that dissonance?” Once we understand what might be the composer’s kernel of inspiration, we gain the ability to bring the composer’s conception to meaningful aural life.
Hildegard, Dufay, Ockeghem, Josquin, Tallis, Byrd, Palestrina, Monteverdi, Viadana, Carissimi, Bach, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Verdi, Mahler, Rachmaninoff, Chesnekov, Poulenc, Kodaly, Bartok, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Britten, Copland, Bernstein, Thompson (Randall and Virgil), Carter, O’Regan, and Argento - these composers are the meat and potatoes of the Harvard Glee Club. Singing their compositions enriches are lives, opens windows into the expressive values of past eras, cultivate and form our tastes and sensibilities, and teaches us the musicianship they require to bring their written symbols to life.
The Glee Club Community is born in the audition process, then retreats and rehearsals, energized by concerts, embellished by annual spring tours, and especially summer tours every 4 years. But equally important for all 3 Holden Choirs are Parties! – now, there is an energizer!: parties at retreats and in Holden, party/receptions after concerts, annual spring formals, weekly beverage and movie nights, and 3 barbecues and Christmas caroling, each year at the Marvin household in Lexington.
Over my 30 years, the Glee Club has performed about 400 works, ranging from the early Renaissance to the most recent. The Holden Choirs together and independently have sung about 70 symphonic-choral works over that time. I am often reminded of the grand tradition of singing with the Boston Symphony Orchestra especially by the alumni of Doc, Woody, and El. The BSO’s decision in the early 70’s to align with a professional choir of professional singers (the Tanglewood Festival Chorus) that could sing multiple concerts every year is one subsequently made by all professional orchestras.
However, speaking with characteristic Harvard humility, – I would match our Combined Holden Three against any choir in the country, including the BSO’s Tanglewood Festival Chorus. Thus, we continue today the proud Harvard-Radcliffe Choral Tradition of performing the symphonic-choral repertoire – the grand masterworks - so fondly remembered by the singers of Doc, Woody, El, and F. John.
Each year as we learn the major works and the small gems of a cappella choral literature we integrate the music into our lives. The process is profound. It breeds humility, spirituality, introspection, joy, high emotion, frustration, humor, teamwork, musicianship, self-confidence, self-esteem, pride, community, trust, and love – “the tie that binds”.
I have been blessed for 30 years by the humor, intelligence, sensibility, integrity, and abundant zaniness of Harvard students - along with their loyalty, commitment, professionalism, leadership, and willingness to work hard for a common goal: singing good music-well.
That I, this Glendale Californian, was chosen to come to this foreign land – to be able to experience such a wellspring of enlightenment, I will forever cherish. These Harvard students have given me indescribable long-lasting elation. Their passion for perfecting choral music, their love of singing together, their unbridled joy at the fun and fellowship they experience, enriches me beyond all words, just as it has you, the alumni of the Harvard Glee Club.
My commitment to them and to you, has been my life’s work, and I am uniquely blessed to be here in 2008, at Harvard University to celebrate as your conductor, the 150th anniversary of the founding of the Harvard Glee Club.
Thank you very very much.
Jameson Marvin
Jim
Conductor, Harvard Glee Club
Director of Choral Activities, Harvard University
