Children's Choir of Texas
A Lullaby Alleluia
So this was one of those random stumbles that in my opinion, just ended really well. I am not actually sure what school or organization this choir is associated with, but the uniforms make me think a parochial school of some sorts. When listening to the piece, the first thing I noticed was the pure tone they have at the beginning. There is unification of vowels, everything seems North-South instead of East-West. They obviously worked very hard to rid themselves of the "Al-lay-lu-ya", so much so to the point where I find the second syllable to be a bit distracting. I guess there really is such a thing as going too far when it comes to that word. There is a bit of English text, and I had times understanding what was being said. However, the phrasing, shape, and direction of the piece kept a mood that allowed me to fill in appropriate lyrics. Many children's choirs are just cute. This choir was cute, and extremely musical.
There is great phrasing here, the melody line flows sort of effortlessly. The intervals in the Alleluia line are pretty much spot on, creating a nice, harmonic progression. The diction is also great, with tall vowels and audible text. This could just be me, but I feel that the descending line for the Voice part II in "Alleluia" may be out of range for the singers, specifically the last two notes. There is also some sluring from the melody line in "lu-ya" and its not perfect with the accuracy of pitches when they slide, but its not a major issue at all, as they sounded great overall.
ReplyDeleteThis is very nice. However, I disagree with your comment about the second syllable in Alleluia. I don't find it distracting at all. They have tremendous blend. Every part could be heard and no specific voice or voice part stuck out. I do agree with Aaron in that there are some pitch problems in the second "ooh" sections. I don't know that the bottom part is too low. It might be, but I think they execute it well. They last note in that phrase sound light and in tune too me. Nice find Zach!
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