florida state university college of music performance practice

however, one of Rifkin‟s biggest defenders and supporters, English conductor, Andrew
Parrott, disagrees with this hypothesis. 347
No doubt, the topic of choir size has monopolized performance practice,
particularly over the past twenty-five years (but always present throughout the century),
and has greatly influenced the artistic decisions made by conductors regarding choir size.
Represented choir sizes are diverse but overall they are much smaller than in previous
decades of the early nineteenth century. Only two of the thirty-seven obtained recordings
follow closely the one voice per part (OVPP) concertist theory with an additional
ripienist singer per vocal part added in singing the chorales. The Scholars Baroque
Ensemble, notorious for their performances without a formal conductor, 1993 recording
features 2 sopranos, 2 countertenors, 2 Tenors and 2 Basses. Eleven years later in 2004,
Dutch conductor Jos van Veldhoven followed suit with concertists singing one voice per
part and ripienists joining in on the chorales. While the majority of recordings obtained
feature chamber choirs, very few ventured into minimalist interpretations like OVPP.
As mentioned before, given that Rifkin‟s theory regarding one voice per part has
gained wide acceptance within the scholarly community and no credible explanation to
date has surfaced to repudiate the evidence, there still seems to be a vast chasm between
theory and actual contemporary practice of performance. Why hasn‟t practice caught up
with research? It is highly plausible that many conductors approaching the St. John
Passion, and largely any vocal works of J.S. Bach‟s, are intimately aware of the historical
considerations regarding choir size. While these conductors go to great length to be
historically informed in many ways, they seem, based on the evidence to consciously
select choirs that are considerably larger than in Bach‟s time. The fact is that overall,
society‟s choral aesthetic has largely not changed to reflect the strong evidence for
minimistic interpretations of Bach‟s works. Our contemporary concept and definition of
what a choir is has changed dramatically and is in stark contrast to conventional choirs in
the eighteenth century. As a result, most modern performance venues are constructed in
such a manner that make it difficult, albeit not impossible, for a choir of a quartet or octet
to dramatically and convincingly present an effective performance of Bach‟s works.
Furthermore, since the explosion of larger choral entities like choral societies in the
347 Golomb, “Expression and Meaning in Bach‟s Performance and Reception,” 141.
85