For Stacy Horn, singing in a volunteer community choir — the Choral Society of Grace Church in New York — is the one thing in her life that never fails to take her to a transcendent place and to remind her that everything good is possible. She’s not religious, and (she admits) she doesn’t have a great voice, but like thousands of other amateur chorus members throughout this country and the world, singing together with other people makes her happy.
In a book published this week, Horn relates her funny and profound experiences as a choir member for the past 30 years, including an eclectic history of group singing, the lives of conductors and composers, and the histories of pieces of music, both famous and forgotten. She dabbles in the science of singing, and writes with authenticity about the benefits from choral singing.
Chapters are organized around choral works Horn has performed: A German Requiem, The Chichester Psalms, Messiah, Missa Simile est Regnum Coelorum, and so on.
For those expecting nothing but bliss in choral singing, Horn's account of first encountering Bernstein's The Chichester Psalms in the real world is instructive:
How are we supposed to count this? It's in seven. Is that even rhythmically allowed? Imagine tapping your foot to something you're listening to. It's usually going to be a beat like one-two, one-two, or the waltz's one-two-three, one-two-three. Now imagine counting one-two-three-four-five-six-seven. It's just weird.My friend Barbara told me that The Chichester Psalms are in seven because of the sacred nature of seven in Hebrew. Great. They couldn't revere four?
Immediately after dealing with that problem, Horn experiences a meltdown when she is "demoted" from the first soprano section to the second:
I've been a soprano 1 for my entire choral life. That's the part that sings the highest notes, the best notes, and the best part of the best notes; the melody. When I found my name in the column for sopranos 2s ... I couldn't breathe. I had no time to recover and focus before (choirmaster) John raised his baton ... I could barely read my music. It took me a few moments to find the stupid soprano 2 part in the score ...
Imperfect Harmony encompasses rhapsodies to choral singing, a lot of funny kvetching, personal stories, and interesting background information from the trenches of choral warfare.