Wikipedia:Featured sound candidates/Victimae Paschali

Victimae Paschali
I think this recording is pretty nice and adds a lot to the article it's in. I'm trying to help clarify what the standards for featured sound will be by nominating something.

This recording is included in Victimae Paschali Laudes. It's possible it would benefit other articles, but I haven't spammed it everywhere. Mak (talk)  21:26, 8 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Support - highly encyclopedic, lovely recording. Moreschi Talk 19:12, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Support. Overall, it's beautiful—you can spam it. Vocal qualities are highly suitable for this genre. Control of vibrato, colour and tempo is superb. Reverb wouldn't want to be any less, but is fine. If I had to nitpick, (1) quite a few of the notes are not perfectly pitched, and (2) next time, try placing the mike a little further away to avoid intrusive consonants (just a few of them, here). Congratulations. "in a room off a street in a city on a river"—Ha! Perhaps "in a private venue"? Tony 23:28, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Support simply lovely and very well-sung! Gretab 23:38, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Support. Another nicely done recording that enhances its article. :-) Kat Walsh (spill your mind?) 01:44, 10 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Support, of course. Very, very beautifully sung.  Antandrus  (talk) 01:07, 11 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Weak support. Concur with Tony's points.  I think this an example of a minimum standard for a featured (musical) sound.  There are however, ways it could be improved.  It would be better if performed by a choir in a more resonant setting, and at a slower tempo.  The speed of this recording would not suit a resonant cathedral.  So in a sense the recording illustrates the music in an inauthentic way. But since Wikipedia is not a cathedral, I'll support. -- Sam uel Wantman 03:55, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I concede that the tuning is not perfect, but I disagree about your comments about performance practice. Sequences were not only sung in Cathedrals, but also in convents, abbeys, and local churches, which would not have a 15 second echo. Also, as for choral singing, according to Grove's article on sequences: "The performing practice history of the sequence is ambiguous. It apparently began as a solo chant but became a choral one in a large number of establishments," since this is an early sequence, it's quite possible it was sung solo at times. Now, if you feel like going to fact that men and boys were supposedly the only ones to sing chant, this particular sequence can be found in Codex las Huelgas, a manuscript which was used for services at a convent. Mak (talk)  14:20, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Is there any evidence that it was common for a solo singer to have sung this at this tempo? Are there any commercial recordings of this at this tempo with a solo voice?  Is there documentation of any performances in recorded history done this way?  I am supporting, but I think this information is relevant to how we document the performance.  Someone listening to this recording, unfamiliar with chant might think that this is the way it is commonly performed.  I don't think that is the case.  Since we are creating an encyclopedia, we need to be careful about details like this. -- Sam uel Wantman 17:19, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Erm. From "Performing practice" "Little is known about the sort of voice production favoured over the centuries, or about dynamic level or tempo: vocal colour, loudness and speed affect the way chant is sung and heard, but the musical sources are silent on such matters." and "The vast majority of texts relating to performance matters simply recommend moderation in choice of tempo and pitch, together with sweetness of voice production." To me, this is a moderate tempo. If it makes you feel more settled I studied with two of the people who recorded for the latest edition of Grout's music history textbook (Burkholder/Grout/Palisca, the text used in most universities in the US). May I ask, do you have a background in performance practice? Because this seems like a strange question to ask in this context. Mak (talk)  18:41, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Tempo and performance practice: Original tempo is one of the most difficult aspects of early performance to determine, since metronomes did not exist in those times. I suspect that many "authentic" recordings of early music are faster than the composers envisaged; modern performers, perhaps justifiably, perceive that the public sensibility favours it—life has simply sped up. I hope I'm not frightening the horses by saying this. Tony 23:37, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
 * (Edit conflict) For a few years I sang in a medieval/renaissance choir. And for a while was a classical music programmer on a radio station. I don't recall chants or plainsong ever being sung this fast.  I don't have any recordings that go this fast either.  I don't think it is so fast as to oppose it, but I think it would be better slower.  I am not an expert on this, just speaking from what I've experienced and heard in recordings.  I'm asking these questions because I'm genuinely interested in knowing if what I think is so, is really so. -- Sam uelWantman 23:40, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Ok, fair enough. As Tony said, tempo is one of the things which is least known about in terms of performance practice, particularly for such early stuff. I was taught that chant should be sung as though declaiming text. This is the speed at which I would declaim this text. That may not be valid, but it is the method ascribed to by many singers who specialise in early performance practice, such as Paul Hillier and Paul Elliott. I jumped on iTunes, and the first recording I clicked on sounded to me like about the same tempo, it was the Benedictine Monks of the Abbey of St. Maurice and St. Maur. A number of other recordings were also the same speed, including the Choir of Benedictine Nuns at the Abbey of Regina Laudis. For performances of such chants as a solo, see "The Age of Cathedrals", particularly "Natus est rext", with Paul Hillier and Theatre of Voices (full disclosure - I wrote those articles). I think accepted performance practice of this stuff has shifted significantly since the '70s, which may be part of the disconnect here. Mak (talk)  08:47, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I guess that dates me. Thanks for the info. -- &#x2611; Sam uelWantman 04:16, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Per all of that discussion, support. -- Phoenix2  (talk, review) 23:54, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

--KFP (talk | contribs) 10:51, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

