conducting journal: Franck at a glance

I've started in on the Franck Solemn Mass in A, op. 12.  It's really quiet lovely.  I chose it for several reasons.

First, it's a single, unified work, which is not a thing I have done much with this particular group.  We do a lot of concerts with themes connecting many little songs.

Second, it's in three parts, which is better for this group than four.  As with many community choirs, we have a lot of women and few men.  The men we have are good, but when you divide them up, the balance just doesn't work.  The three parts are actually STB, not SAB, but I think I can make it work by switching some voices around.  You gotta do what you gotta do, right?

Third, as I said when I posted about conducting journaling the first time, it's the source of the famous, lovely "Panis Angelicus."  It's always nice to have a familiar anchor for the audience someplace in the concert.

I've done the first stages of preparation so far: numbering the measures (sound stupid, but it's important) and listening.  Also I've begun with considerations of where I might re-assign voices to make the STB voicing work for SAB.

So, broad strokes.  There are six movements--the regular five movements of Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei, with the Panis Angelicus stuck in between the Sanctus and Agnus Dei, right in time for communion.  Very practical.  The Gloria and Credo are, as expected, the longest movements, because they have the most texts.  The other movements are proportionate in length to the relative length of their texts.  There isn't a whole lot of text repetition, and there are no fugues or other musical devices where a single phrase of text is repeated eight thousand times.  The text is definitely the leader.  Actually, each phrase is set quite specifically to reflect its meaning, which is a thing I'm going to have to look into further.

The overall sound is tonal as can be.  Several moments are downright pretty.  A little polyphony, limited imitation, some homophony, and many moments of single voices.

Those are the very broadest of strokes, in the first step I take.  Next, zoom in and get to know the lines.