MCE will be performing “A Red, Red Rose” at their spring concert on March 11, 2012. The words are from a poem by Robert Burns and the musical arrangement is by James Mulholland. There are numerous versions of this choral arrangement available on YouTube. Most of them are pleasant and competent performances, but there is one which makes the others sound roughshod.
The most perfect Red, Red Rose is performed by a non English-speaking group from the city of Kaohsiung in Taiwan, China.--the Kaohsiung Chamber Choir. Notice the singers’ faces and the camera work.
By what trick of magic does this group of Chinese singers achieve such a smooth, warm intimacy with the song--enter into it so masterfully, inhabit it so naturally and sing to us from within the spirit of Burns’ poetry?
At first, I thought it could only be that the conductor had spent her student years in Scotland and had fallen in love with the literature and music of the British Isles. So far, my research neither confirms or disproves this conjecture.
Only several obvious factors in the natural world seem to provide an answer to the mystery of their stunning accomplishment.
First, there is the miraculous artistry of the conductor. She sings with and through the singers, expressing the quiet depths of love and its joyful defiance and triumph (“...I will come again, my luve, tho’ it were ten thousand mile...”). By the end of the song, she has surrendered to the beauty of the music and sings no more. Her silent, open, listening face says only in wonderment, “O tell..tell me all...tell me now...”, and draws from the singers the last quiet notes.
First, there is the miraculous artistry of the conductor. She sings with and through the singers, expressing the quiet depths of love and its joyful defiance and triumph (“...I will come again, my luve, tho’ it were ten thousand mile...”). By the end of the song, she has surrendered to the beauty of the music and sings no more. Her silent, open, listening face says only in wonderment, “O tell..tell me all...tell me now...”, and draws from the singers the last quiet notes.
Secondly, the Kaohsiung Chamber Choir is an elite group composed mostly of music teachers and graduate students with voice/chorus conducting majors who live up to their motto “Pursuing the eternal beauty of chorus singing”. See A Brief Introduction--Kaohsiung Chamber Choir:
Thirdly, with any artistic endeavor, the Chinese seem to me to have the tradition of practicing (practicing, practicing) to the point of perfection. And they have done it again.
Roberta DeBruler
MCE Musical Correspondent
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