Choral Listening Series -Recording #1

O Magnum Mysterium - Morten Lauridsen (performed by the Dale Warland Singers)

This is one of the enduring choral masterpieces of recent times. Morten Lauridsen and Eric Whitacre are the defining composers of American choral music from the last three decades. We’ll get into some Whitacre later. The O Magnum text is Christmas-based, and translates to: O great mystery, and wonderful sacrament, that animals should see the newborn Lord, lying in a manger! Blessed is the virgin whose womb was worthy to bear the Lord, Jesus Christ. Alleluia!

There are a few things we can observe here. Listen to how smooth their phrases are! This is because of the precise legato between each of their notes, connected with a miniature, imperceptible slide. Legato means to connect the notes smoothly. The singers are stagger-breathing very well, so the long phrases sound seamless. Stagger-breathing means to breathe at different times than those around you, so as to avoid a gap in the sound.

The cutoffs are precise, but it’s more than that: notice that they all close to the “m” of “mysterium” and “christum” at exactly the same time as well. Their vowels are also expertly matched. Superbly precise!

The parts which have the moving notes are always brought out much louder than the held notes, so you can always easily hear when certain notes shift within the texture to alter the sound of the chord. When that element is missing, this piece becomes very boring very quickly.

I picked this version because I like the tempo better than some of the other recordings, and the phrasing is executed less abruptly and awkwardly than other conductors’ interpretations. To me, this is not a perfect performance, but it’s about as close as I’ve seen.

For all you visual learners, here is a recording which contains a video of the score.
You will undoubtedly notice that this version is nowhere near as polished as the first one.