Music for Wordless Choir

[mahler10th]

I have just been listening to the very beautiful Debussy Nocturnes - in particular, the third piece in the suite, Sirens, where there is a voiceless female choir (the Sirens, obviously).  I myself would be tempted by the Sirens, I too would turn my boat around to hear them and thus crash into the rocks to their beautiful chanting.  There is also a voiceless female choir in RVW's 7th.
Being a humanist fellow, I am interested in the human voice being used as an instrument of evocation rather than a means of constant yapping.    Having your own human spirit evoked from within by the harmony of massed human voices directing your mindset by sheer tone and music (rather than by what they might say) is something I would like to hear more of.
Any suggestions?

[karlhenning]

Ravel's Daphnis & Chloé, the Vaughan Williams Sinfonia antartica.

[listener]

I think you mean "wordless" choir.    A voiceless one would be inaudible.

HOLST: The Planets    Neptune    "a Hidden Choir of Female Voices in 6 Parts"
MILHAUD  Chamber Symphony 6  for 4 voices, oboe and cello  is text-less
TCHAIKOWSKY: The Nutcracker   Act 1, no.9 Waltz of the Snowflakes calls for an invisible (off-stage, not early sci-fi) chorus of 24 women, or children on stage.

single voice:
GLIÈRE:  Concerto for Coloratura Soprano and Orchestra

[Maciek]

Voiceless choir? What's the point?

[karlhenning]

HOLST: The Planets    Neptune    "a Hidden Choir of Female Voices in 6 Parts"

Yes, another lovely!

[Drasko]

Voiceless choir? What's the point?

http://www.youtube.com/v/ZCFCeJTEzNU

[karlhenning]

Nielsen's 3rd Symphony (Sinfonia espansiva) 2nd movement.

Yes, though in that case, two soli voices, rather than a full choir.

[Luke]

In the last of Schnittke's ultra-lachrymose Psalms of Repentance the choir sings with no text, as if at last beyond words, although for about the first time here the music is tinted by a shade of major mode.

[mahler10th]

Voiceless choir? What's the point?

Er...well...I mean a choir who obviously have voices, but their singular voice is purely instrumental, and has no contextual 'voice' to grind in communication.
Yep.  That still sounds pretty shoddy.  Well, I know what I mean, but I'm not sure how to say it...looks like listener has got it right for me...

[Novi]

Cue obligatory John Cage joke?

There's not a lot of it, but the chorus enters in the second movement of Nørgård's Symphony 3, soaring wordlessly in a kind of primordial way. I only heard this piece a couple of days ago - it's great!

[mahler10th]

Cue obligatory John Cage joke?

There's not a lot of it, but the chorus enters in the second movement of Nørgård's Symphony 3, soaring wordlessly in a kind of primordial way. I only heard this piece a couple of days ago - it's great!

Thank you Novi, Nørgård is yet unfound for me, so I'll have a listen somewhere to that then get it if I am primordially affected.   

[The new erato]

Cue obligatory John Cage joke?

There's not a lot of it, but the chorus enters in the second movement of Nørgård's Symphony 3, soaring wordlessly in a kind of primordial way. I only heard this piece a couple of days ago - it's great!

Yes it's great, but though they sound wordless, they are actually singing texts, according to the booklet.

Flos Campi by Vaughan-Williams.

[Novi]

Yes it's great, but though they sound wordless, they are actually singing texts, according to the booklet.

Flos Campi by Vaughan-Williams.

The chorus is wordless at first, then the 'Ave Stella Maria' kind of emerges from the sound. But I was actually thinking of the soaring voice that echoes the violins a couple of minutes earlier (around the 8 minute mark).

[Luke]

....the ecstatic vocalise at the end of A Child of Our Time. It's only the soloists, though.....

[listener]

a few more to consider
VAUGHAN WILLIAMS   Flos campi   for solo viola, small chorus (20 to 26 singers) and small orchestra
DELIUS Song of the High Hills   "The Chorus must be sung on the vowel which will produce the richest tone possible"
SCHOENBERG   The Genesis Suite: Prelude
SCRIABIN     Prometheus
IVES     Symphony no.4

[pjme]

Gabriel Pierné : Cydalise et le chêvre-pied : complete version / on Timpani
                          Prelude : Les Cathédrales

Florent Schmitt : La tragédie de Salomé ( last mov.)
Arthur Honegger : Phèdre ( 2 fragm.)
Cyril Scott : The muses ( symph. nr 3 ) last mov.
Darius Milhaud : l'Homme et son désir ( large ensemble + vocal quartet)
Symphony nr 3 "Te deum", slow movement
Erkki Melartin : symph. 4 "Summer" slow movement ( with sopr., mezzo, alto) - absolutely gorgeous!
Belgian composer/conductor Lodewijk de Vocht wrote (1935) a Vocal symphony for wordless chorus & orch.
Quite an achievement....Art Déco music? available from the deVocht foundation ...in an old ( ca 1960) mono recording....
Puccini : Madame Butterfly famous "humming" chorus
Conductor Emile de Cou made a version for wordless chorus & orch. for Debussy's "Printemps". The "original" = non -orchestrated version / chorus with piano 4 hands is now available on the Glossa label / Hervé Niquet
Septuor for stringquartet & 3 female voices by André Caplet - splendid! ( available on Harmonia Mundi)
P.

[mahler10th]

Gabriel Pierné : Cydalise et le chêvre-pied : complete version / on Timpani
                          Prelude : Les Cathédrales
Florent Schmitt : La tragédie de Salomé ( last mov.)
Arthur Honegger : Phèdre ( 2 fragm.)
Cyril Scott : The muses ( symph. nr 3 ) last mov.
Darius Milhaud : l'Homme et son désir ( large ensemble + vocal quartet)
Symphony nr 3 "Te deum", slow movement
Erkki Melartin : symph. 4 "Summer" slow movement ( with sopr., mezzo, alto) - absolutely gorgeous!
Belgian composer/conductor Lodewijk de Vocht wrote (1935) a Vocal symphony for wordless chorus & orch.
Quite an achievement....Art Déco music? available from the deVocht foundation ...in an old ( ca 1960) mono recording....
Puccini : Madame Butterfly famous "humming" chorus
Conductor Emile de Cou made a version for wordless chorus & orch. for Debussy's "Printemps". The "original" = non -orchestrated version / chorus with piano 4 hands is now available on the Glossa label / Hervé Niquet
Septuor for stringquartet & 3 female voices by André Caplet - splendid! ( available on Harmonia Mundi)
P.

Thank you for all that PJME.  A good few I've never heard before there, time to go rummaging online shops and other online things.

[Harpo]

Voiceless choir? What's the point?

Before I realized that "wordless choir" was intended, I wondered if John Cage had written a piece where the choir comes out and stands silently for 4 minutes and 33 seconds. 

[listener]

Bizet's L'Arlésienne  incidental music has a couple of wordless choruses in Act 2.

[Cato]

Not to be forgotten:

Scriabin: Mysterium as completed by Alexander Nemtin.    That is a 1-CD work.

There is a longer 3-CD version known as Preparation for the Final Mystery.

The latter version has all kinds of wordless choral sections!