These may be perilous times, but they are also times for singing. First, because that’s the best way to counter adverse or threatening fortunes; second, because it’s very healthy for mind and body; third, because the season is now Choral Time; fourth, because we now have more independent choruses (i.e., groups not connected to church or school) in operation here than at any time since television began.

The florescence of choral singing in the Bay Area during the past decade is wondrous strange and doesn’t make sense, on the face of it. During much of the last half-century, the teaching of music, singing in particular, ceased to be the concern of school boards and their institutions. Generations slipped through the schools without singing so much as “I’m a Little Tea Cup” or “Poppies, Golden Poppies.” Generations of musical illiterates. So where does this new choral generation come from? Younger people suddenly hearing the light and getting the urge, figuring there has to be a better way than just sitting and listening to CDs? Nice thought, but it can’t be that simple. The groups in our choral revival can't, and don't, accept utter beginners into their ranks, non-music readers with no vocal experience.

Does this presence of young singers reflect immigration from regions with deeper choral traditions, states like Illinois, Wisconsin, and Minnesota where, thanks to a solid Scandinavian and German base, singing is big and good? Was it the influx of college-educated folks during the dot.com madness, who, once here, were seeking to renew an important part of their lives back home?

Just such a phenomenon during and immediately after the Gold Rush laid the choral basis for San Francisco’s musical scene. The Germans, for example, who rushed here following the failed 1848 revolution, set up their clubs almost on arrival. In 1852, the Social Turn Verein had 75 members of whom 25 were singers. By 1854, there were 6,000 members! The Germania Musical Society, conducted by Rudolph Herold, was part of this.

By the 1950s, a century later, there was a fair choral tradition going here, all of it on a volunteer basis. The San Francisco Symphony, for a time, utilized the Municipal Chorus, directed by a fine musician and dear, gentle person, Hans Leschke, who was born and trained in Germany, and had played violin under the great Arthur Nikisch. As the Municipal Chorus waned and Leschke aged, the Symphony invited the choruses from UC Berkeley and Stanford as well to join in performances of the major choral works. Monteux enjoyed conducting these even though Leonora Wood Armsby, the Symphony Association’s president from 1935, when she engaged him, until 1953, didn’t like choral music. The audiences drawn to such events as Brahms’ A German Requiem, Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms and Berlioz’ Damnation of Faust were among the orchestra’s largest, but Armsby continued to oppose choral programming, if vainly.

In 1972, during Seiji Ozawa’s third season as music director, the Symphony Chorus was founded. That was a major step, providing the orchestra and its audiences a consistent and mature choral instrument, one that drew the experienced “choral immigrants” to its membership and eventually included a core of professional singers. However, the opportunity it has offered, to perform some of the exciting new music composed over the last 40 years, has been overlooked or wasted, with just a couple of good exceptions. The Symphony Chorus has the skill and voices for the new repertory, much of which, because of the required number of singers and instruments and the level of difficulty, lies beyond the reach of the volunteer choruses and choral ensembles here.

The music directors who have enjoyed the Symphony Chorus’ excellent services, Ozawa, De Waart, Blomstedt and now Tilson Thomas, have been content to use that chorus mostly for the standard repertory. It produces remarkable sonority, and is a sensitive and thrilling instrument in all choral respects save that of diction. It’s difficult to get its words in whatever language is sung, and that shortcoming affects the chorus’ rhythmic clarity as well.

The former Oakland Symphony created its own Symphony Chorus in 1960, calling on it for as many as three major works a year. The Oakland Symphony Chorus still functions on its own, independent of, but often performing with the Oakland East Bay Symphony. The Marin Symphony organized a chorus two years ago and will call on it this season. The Berkeley Symphony is planning a choral festival for the spring.

A glance at SFCV’s performance calendars for November and December reveals how blessed we are with fine groups, most of which reach out for repertory that is unusual and worthy, if new only in the sense of its having been neglected, overlooked. Sunday’s concert by the Oakland Symphony Chorus (reviewed in this issue) illustrates that. The San Francisco Choral Society last weekend delivered itself of Mozart’s Grand Mass in C minor and Beethoven’s Choral Fantasy while in the East Bay, the UC Alumni Chorus sang the Symphony of Psalms. And the SF Bay Area Chamber Choir’s Palestrina and Poulenc settings of the the same four motets for Christmas time and Rheinberger's Mass in E flat are not exactly your readily encountered Advent program.

Next week, in Palo Alto, Philharmonia Baroque starts its performances of Bach’s B minor Mass, while in Berkeley, the California Bach Society sings the first of its programs featuring Monteverdi’s Mass for Christmas Day.

December starts with a Sing-along Messiah at UC Berkeley’s Hertz Hall on Saturday, the first, repeated on the seventh, while in Oakland, the S.F. Lyric Chorus performs French music. On it goes, and in the East Bay alone, between December 5 and 14, there will be performances by the UC Chorus, Cal State Hayward Choruses, Magnificat, Pacific Mozart Ensemble, Voices of Musica Sacra, Baroque Choral Guild, Kitka, the SF Choral Artists and Chanticleer. Some of those programs will be repeated in San Francisco on the tri-county tour favored by our ensembles. The City will also have a Handel Judas Maccabaeus at Temple Emanu-el by the SF State University groups on Sunday, December 2, as well as The (San Jose) Choral Project at Mission Dolores, December 7, and after the American Bach Soloists’ three performances of Handel’s Messiah on the 18th, 20th and 21st, the SF Conservatory’s annual sing-along version in Davies Hall on December 29.

And that, of course, is not all of it, nor is it a list of choral groups active here. This is simply an overview of what is now on SFCV’s calendar, in which we recommend you browse and make your selections. There is nothing like the altogether heartening sound of fine choral voices. The listener can come close to empathizing with the singing, identifying with the impulse and the sound in ways that make it very personal, often intimate. Done at the level some of these groups are known for, it can be a moving and an elevating experience. If there is something more important than that in these times, I don’t know what it is. If you can’t sing yourself, not even in the privacy of your own company, then do dip into the choral season and let them sing your heart up.

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