Paul Salamunovich - acda.org · and Music Director Emeritus of the Master Chorale of Tampa Bay...

42 CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 55 Number 3

“A fi nal note is never too long if it is soft enough

Paul SalamunovichA Beacon of the Chora l Ar tMar y Breden and Rober t Summer

“A fi nal note is never too long if it is soft enough.”

Mary BredenProfessor of Music and Director of Choral Activities Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA [email protected]

Robert SummerProfessor Emeritus of Choral Studies, University of South Florida (Tampa) and Music Director Emeritus of the Master Chorale of Tampa [email protected]

On April 3, 2014, eminent choral conductor and music educator Paul Salamunovich passed away. Among many notable achievements, Salamunovich

was a Grammy-nominated choral conductor who taught choral music at Mount St. Mary’s College in Los Angeles, Loyola Marymount University, and the University of South-ern California’s Thornton School of Music. He was music director emeritus of the Los Angeles Master Chorale and served for sixty years at St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in North Hollywood, California, as organist and choir director. Salamunovich was also a singer and assistant conductor of the famed Roger Wagner Chorale. For his ser-vice and contribution to the music of the Catholic Church, in 1969 he received a Papal Knighthood in the Order of St. Gregory the Great from Pope Paul VI. In 2005, Salamunovich was awarded the Robert Shaw Choral Award, the highest honor given by the American Choral Directors Association to a choral leader who has made an extraordinary contribu-tion to the art of choral music.

The following tribute article is a special compilation of material. First is an article by Mary Breden, current director of choral activities at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. She studied conducting with Salamunovich and was for several years his accompanist with choruses at Mount St. Mary’s, Loyola University, and Loyola Marymount University. The second portion of this article is a reprint of an essay by Robert Summer, professor emeritus of choral studies at the University of South Florida (Tampa)and past president of Florida ACDA. He uses personal experiences from Salamunovich workshops, observations during rehearsals and performances, and a 2010 inter-view to document Salamunovich’s rehearsal procedures and performance experiences of Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina’s Sicut cervus. In both articles, quotes from Paul are set in a different font to differentiate them from the words of the authors.


Paul Salamunovich: Elegance and Artistry

By Mary Breden

Having worked with Paul Salamu-novich as a singer, conducting student, rehearsal accompanist, and colleague for over forty years, I have discovered that many aspects of the pedagogy he developed arose from his personal musical encounters. Quotations used here come from observing him in action during these years and from a series of interviews I conducted with Paul at his

home in North Hollywood, California, in July 2006.

It is no secret that Paul Salamunovich made an incredible impact on the choral profession. From his all-consuming pas-sion for the beauty of tone, to his insis-tence that singers must be actors, to his shaping of the inevitable phrase, Paul left his mark on every singer he conducted no matter who they were or what their background. His keen ear and expres-sive soul were a marvel to listeners and singers alike, who never ceased to be amazed at the magic he created when he stepped onto the podium. He put it very simply: “I merely observe what’s on the page, and they all think I’m a genius.”

Any singer or choral conductor who

has attended a workshop or sung in an All-State Honor Choir conducted by Paul knows that he preferred a very specifi c tone quality, accompanied with points of precision that helped in attain-ing that tone. “I have become obsessed with the development of a tonal palette, which is the foundation of the sounds I need to start with in the instrument.”

Amid the many vivid recollections that Paul had from his childhood in Re-dondo Beach, California, was one that revealed a remarkable musical sensitivity, one that perhaps planted the seed for many of the techniques he utilized over the years with his own choirs as well as with workshop and festival choirs around the world.

Paul Salamunovich A Beacon of the Choral Ar t

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CHORAL JOURNAL Volume 55 Number 3 45

When I was eleven years old, I had an experience that may have been the forerunner of what would

come—that my sensitivities to tone and balance would govern the tonal palette I demand from choirs. I was playing a game of sandlot football after school with my brothers and some friends, and one day I caught someone’s elbow in the mouth.

When I got through crying, I decid-ed to go off by myself. There was an oil fi eld, a few derricks, and lots of storage oil tanks—enormous round tanks. Be-ing a rather inquisitive little kid, I found a door open down at the bottom of one of the tanks. The tank was empty, but it was fi lled with leftover tarry residue. There were some pipes running across the fl oor. Balancing myself between two of the pipes, I discovered my great black cathedral. The echo was so enor-mous! It circled and circled; at fi rst, as any kid would do, I suppose, I yelled at myself to “Shut up!” It would come back at me in a huge diminuendo.

After I got bored screaming at my-self, I started singing a tone. I remem-ber I used “oo”; Fr. Buechner [Fr. Louis Buechner, the young priest at St. James Catholic Church in Redondo Beach, who was Paul’s fi rst choir director] had trained us to sing on “oo.” And, my gosh, it just fi lled that tank with an incredible sound! I soon realized that if I didn’t enter in the center of the pitch, it was blurred. It took me the longest time to hit the dead center of the note, and when I cut, there was a tail end of a drop of pitch. And that blurred. So I worked for many, many minutes to hit the fi rst note dead on and to cut pre-cisely from the center of the pitch; then I heard this beautiful sound and I said, “Listen to me sing in here!” Of course it was the beautiful soprano sound that I was learning to use singing in the boys’ choir. Well, I was developing an

even more beautiful sound, because I began to judge whether I was making it lovely or not.

After I mastered the quality of the single pitch, I decided to try two parts. So I made a jump of a third from the

fi rst note. Again, it took me the longest time to cut the fi rst note and enter the second note dead center a third below. Then I said, “It’s not balanced. Well then, sing the fi rst note louder, cut cleanly, and sing the next one a little softer.” When I got them balanced, I listened to two-part harmony. Then I got more daring. I added the lowest note of the triad. Once again, I spent a very long time going through the three

pitches—entering the center of the note, releasing from the center of the note, entering the next one precisely in tune…And if I didn’t, it wasn’t lovely to listen to. After many tries in what seemed like an eternity, I fi nally got

all three notes in tune. With the perfect blend that I pro-

duced by fi nding the center of the pitch, I heard my fi rst balanced choir. So there it was. It was one of the great moments of my life. It’s almost as if I took a master’s degree in tone and bal-ance in that oil tank. Oh, and it goes further. I fi nally sang “Amen, Amen, Amen,” forming the descending triad. I had to have that ending prayer.

Morten Lauridsen and Paul Salamunovich. Paul and the St. Charles Borromeo Choir returned to Loyola Marymount University in 2005 for the Fortieth Annual Spring Concert. St. Charles sang Lauridsen’s Lux Aeterna, the only time they performed the work with orchestra. Paul also conducted the combined LMU and St. Charles choruses in Toward the Unknown Region of Ralph Vaughan Williams. (Photograph by Glenn Cratty)

“I MERELY OBSERVE WHAT’S ON THE PAGE, AND THEY ALL THINK I’M A GENIUS.”


When teaching young singers to understand true intonation by coming immediately into the center of the pitch, Paul often demonstrated the difference between a glissando, a portamento, and an appoggiatura.

One of my pet things to do when I want to work on intonation on en-trances is to make sure the singers know the terminology. I say, “Do you know what a glissando is?” Okay, you see a descending jagged line. Do a glissando [shows how to slide downward]. Do you know what a portamento is? Usually they don’t. It’s a little curved line coming from the lower note to an upper note [slides up an ascending whole step on “oo”]. Glide into it. Again I have them sing it. Then I ask, “Now do you know what an appoggiatura is?” It’s that little grace note with a line through it. Sing an appoggiatura [sings/slides de-scending half step on “oo”].Then sing, portamento—appoggiatura—neither. Immediately everyone comes to the dead center of the pitch. Now the sing-ers know if there is not one of those marks, they must come dead center.

They realize that if the composer of this music wanted a slide, he could have written one of those two marks. Even the youngest singer can achieve this precision. I tell them, “Now you are a musician.”

Paul also enjoyed getting the choir to

“lock in the chord.” He frequently asked the singers to place a minuscule break between chords so that there would be

no chance of sliding, and the subsequent chord was guaranteed to be in tune and on time. Particularly effective as the choir approaches the penultimate chord of the phrase or the piece, the clarity of the fi nal chord is riveting.

We live for that dead center arrival for the pitch, quality, and balance so that we may achieve the miracle of overtones. If it can’t happen, I use the quote “lock the chord.” The singers have to arrive at that chord precisely together and not be sliding from one part to the other. This is that same dem-onstration I gave in that echoing oil tank… You have to arrive at the center of the pitch of the notes at the same

time as the other parts, and when you do, the chord has to be balanced and the vocal color blended.

In perfecting the clean move be-tween notes and ultimately the precise intonation, Paul also had the singers use a similar tiny break between notes, most often on a leap. In proving this, he asked that the break between the two notes initially be a big break, time-wise. Gradu-ally the singers closed the gap until the break was barely audible, but the move was clean and the intonation true.

He recalled preparing the Los Ange-les Master Chorale on Brahms’s Requiem for guest conductor Robert Shaw. Paul was familiar with Shaw’s practice of insisting that scores be marked with quarter notes becoming dotted eighths followed by sixteenth rests to assure space between the notes and move-ment from the center of one pitch to the center of the next.

“[Shaw] came to that fi rst long leap


I THINK BASSES TEND TO OVER SING. THEY LIKE THAT POWER OF THE LOWER REGISTER. I ALWAYS ASK THE BASSES, “MEN, WHY ARE YOU ANGRY? SING WITH LOVE.” IT’S ONE OF MY FAVORITE THINGS TO SAY TO THE BASSES.

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in the fi rst movement and he yelled ‘64th rest!’ Then the next time when he had that big jump, he says ‘128th!’ He didn’t know that I had already pre-pared them with a 256th rest because I wanted that space between the notes.”

For Paul, the excitement in the music came when the singers could extend the note, preceeding the break “for as long as you can.”

Singers have to be taught how to take the note to the nth degree before they release. Don’t lose the energy, and make sure it is tensioned all the way to the cutoff. This can be best demon-strated by imagining that you are pull-ing on a slingshot; when you let that rock go, it will go far. And when you energize to the cutoff, you can hear that something else is going to happen.

Whether working with honor choirs, the university choruses, the church choir, or the L.A. Master Chorale, he constant-ly expected and demanded this musical exhilaration and excitement—this ten-sion and release. Another fi rst, related

to the famous oil tank experience, was Paul’s realization at such a young age of what was needed to balance his imaginary choir. When he built that fi nal chord of “Amens,” it became ap-parent to him that in order to hear the true triad, it was necessary to sing each successive note slightly softer than the preceding one. In similar fashion, as he worked with live choirs, he came to val-ue the beautiful effect of richness in the balance derived from the groundwork provided by the bass section. However, he used caution when requesting this heavy foundation.

I think basses tend to over-sing. They like that power of the lower register. I always ask the basses, “Men, why are you angry? Sing with love.” It’s one of my favorite things to say to the basses. Then you begin to hear that they will sing with more of the head voice down in the lower register. They won’t push into that ugly chest tone.

Once the bass tone is established, the tenors sing slightly softer than the basses, and the altos balance the tenors. The

center of the choral balance sits critically with the tenors and the altos. When the altos emulate the sound of the male alto or countertenor, an indescribable beauty permeates the choral sound. Finally, the sopranos sing slightly softer than all of the lower parts, adding a shimmer rather than overpowering the balance.

I remember John Rutter explaining the English sound at a dinner where we were sitting together. He said, “An English sound is like a pyramid stand-ing on its point, with that hooty boy sound up there. English men cannot sing heavily. They always sing with that surprise head voice. And the boys have that driven ‘oo’ sound. It’s beautiful.” As he explained, I said, “That’s perfect! An English choir is a pyramid standing on its point.” The sound that I want, however, is the pyramid sitting on its base. When the basses do not over- sing, we begin to hear beautiful over-tones. That is the most thrilling thing in the world. That’s the cherubims and the seraphims singing in the room. It’s like cupping your ears and singing in an echoing hallway or in my oil tank.

Paul recalled that his early men-tors—Fr. Louis Buechner at St. James in Redondo, Richard Keys Biggs at Blessed Sacrament Catholic Church in Holly-wood, and Roger Wagner—were all in-fl uenced by the teachings of Fr. William Finn, longtime conductor of the famous Paulist Choristers in New York. Fr. Finn utilized downward scales with a diminu-endo while carrying the head voice from the upper to the lower register, assuring that the singers do not go into the chest tone at the bottom of the scale.

Biggs also made use of the down-ward scales, softly, always on the “oo” vowel. We were “ooed” to death. He always told us to “bloom the note.” He didn’t like to [use the term] cre-scendo. It was more graceful—like a

Weston Noble and Paul Salamunovich met conference attendees in the exhibits at the 2007 ACDA National Conference in Miami, Florida.


rose blooming with nothing forced.

Paul often expanded on this tool as he worked to lighten up a choir’s tone and improve their intonation if they were getting bogged down in a heavy tone. An honor choir (Missouri All State, 1987) sat amazed while rehearsing Jacob Clemens’s motet Ascendens Chris-tus, for example, as Paul started raising their pitch by half steps. Before long, all voices were fi nally in a vocal place, perhaps a fi fth higher than the written score, where the only sound they could produce was a buoyant head tone. Then as Paul let them return to the original key, all triumphantly celebrated the beauty of their lighter, freer tone.

Fr. Finn never allowed his choristers to sing above a mezzo forte, believing that anything louder would be ugly in quality. As young professional singers, Paul and the other singers in the Los Angeles Concert Youth Chorus, later to become the Roger Wagner Chorale and ultimately the Los Angeles Master Chorale, mastered the head voice but added much more intensity than Finn ever asked for.

We learned to sing with tremen-dous intensity in the softer areas, and our pianissimos were softer than other choirs so the dynamics were relative. With Roger, when we sang a printed fortissimo, we may have only been at a mezzo forte. But it was very intense. He always said, “Give me intensity but with restraint.” [He] used this constantly with us when he was so intense about getting the right tonal quality without being forced. He didn’t allow his singers to get too loud or they would lose that sound, so he said, “Give me more energy so that it implies being louder without literally being fortissimo, but a forte with such energy that it sounds bigger to the listener than it actually is.”

Paul added a strong sense of acting to the tonal intensity that he learned from Wagner. He did not just stop at the translation of a text or the general meaning of a lyric but rather the heart-felt depth of emotion behind the words.

Singing is acting. Singing is an extension of speech. And if you can’t speak it with expression, don’t hide behind the notes. Don’t let the notes do it for you. And when you can use the notes and the words at the same time and deliver the message, people will not stop listening. Make them glad they came to listen. And in the end they will say, “Wow, what an experi-ence it was.” That would be beautiful.

Young singers were delighted and immediately became singing actors as he inspired them with imaginary freckles, pigtails, and gingham skirts in Copland’s Stomp Your Foot. The “Dies Irae” in Mo-zart’s Requiem needed to be sung as if each singer could “paint an even more frightening picture than Michelangelo’s Last Judgement.” Men were urged to sing with a “big boy crying tone” at the Te decet hymnus (Lauridsen, Lux Aeterna/Introitus) or “big boy tears” in George Mead’s arrangement of Down in the Val-ley. Demonstrating this ideal of an act-ing tone, Paul described a performance by the Loyola University (later Loyola Marymount University) Men’s Chorus singing this piece.

I think you’ll fi nd that this is proba-bly a different rendition that you’d hear from anyone else, because when you listen, I swear you can hear fi fty men in tears. Toward the end, the voices can barely speak because of it.They are just heartbroken. That’s how far you can go with imagination.

Never did a note or a phrase lack motion for Paul. His love for the fl ow of chant lines infl uenced so much of this momentum in the music. He often delighted in quick-beating the choir into the phrase, inevitably forcing the singers to play catch-up.

One of the conducting moves that I have used all my life is a horizontal gesture in which I move rapidly from one beat to the next, basically getting there before the choir does, and then all of a sudden I hit resistance. I ad-opted it from one of the most verbally uncommunicative conductors I’ve ever worked for, Alfred Wallenstein. In the late forties and fi fties when we sang all the major works with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, he never ver-balized, but his stick technique was poetically powerful and beautiful. He


A Division of EXTREMELY LTD.


had been a cellist under Toscanini, and when he showed a down-bow [gesture], going horizontally across his body, it was almost like “catch up with me.” That was where I developed what I call the quick beat. I use it often. You can achieve the same sensation in the swimming pool when you start to move your hands quickly and all of a sudden you hit the resistance of the water. It gives wonderful intensity to the musical line.

Alfred Wallenstein personifi ed the artist on the podium. He was not a verbalizer, but when he conducted, you could see exactly what he wanted. He conveyed it with non-verbal com-munication, better than anyone I had ever seen before or since.

The infl uence of chant’s chironomy also infl uenced how Paul led the choir into many of the off-beat entrances in Durufl é’s Requiem. The downbeat was no longer a downbeat but rather the circular rise of the arsis. The voices gently glide in with great élan. He would caution, “Sing without grabbing the note—then it will be in motion.” If the

choir hesitated in such an entrance, he urged them to fall into the phrase: “Your voice will catch you.” Perhaps the mo-tion he valued most was one he used constantly as the choir sang a long held note. Immediately his hand would rise to eye level and gracefully move hori-zontally, reminding all of the need and beautiful result of keeping the note alive. Whether moving dramatically from one note to the next, or from one phrase immediately into another interrupted only by a quick catch-breath, Paul was a champion of the life of the phrase.

If there is inner energy and intensity in the singing, you can feel that the phrase is going to go on, that you have something more to sing. And you don’t lose the attention of the listener or the performers, for that matter. It’s like say-ing, “And furthermore, something else is going to happen.” It’s inevitable, the next phrase.

Paul’s greatness went far beyond his music making. He was a most caring and humble man—so often doubting wheth-er what he did musically was “good

enough.” He loved to teach and prob-ably taught the music world as much about commitment and self-respect as he did about musical truth and artistry. An acknowledged taskmaster and stick-ler for detail in any rehearsal, he made a lifelong impression, one that continues to infl uence even after his death. In the end, though, it was still always about the music. The elegance of his music has been and will live on as a beacon of the ultimate artistry in choral music.

Paul Salamunovich and Palestrina’s Sicut cervus

By Robert Summer

The following is adapted from a chapter in the book Renaissance Music for the Choral Conductor: A Practical Guide ©2013. Reprinted by permission of Scarecrow Press.

Paul Salamunovich was a man who for most of his life had been connected to the performance and teaching of Gregorian Chant and music of the Renaissance.1 Palestrina’s “Sicut cervus” became a signature work for him as a result of his many performanes of the work with church choirs, all-state cho-ruses, and professional choirs.

His tor ica l Per spect ive and Str uctur a l Ana lys i s

The text of Sicut cervus can be trans-lated as follows: “Like as a hart desireth the waterbrook, so also my soul doth long for Thee, O God.” Palestrina’s motet is based on the words of the tract said in the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday at the blessing of the font. Ron Jeffers offers

Paul Salamunovich at his St. Charles retirement, saying a few words at the end of the Mass of Celebration of his sixty years as director of music at the North Hollywood parish.


the following description of its place in the service:

“Sicut cervus” [would have been sung] during the procession to the baptismal font, following the Collect which concludes the twelfth and fi nal Prophecy: Almighty and eternal God…increase the desires of thy people, since none of the faithful can advance to any virtue without thy inspiration.2

The motet is divided into three large

sections and displays the classic struc-ture of a sixteenth-century motet. One melody is associated with the opening line of the text, and that melody is imitated in all the other voices. When the text changes, another melodic idea


appears, which is in turn imitated by all voices. The fi rst section stretches from m. 1 to m. 25, the second (overlapping the fi rst) includes mm. 23–44, and the fi nal one begins at m. 44 with the so-pranos singing the words “anima mea.” Although the divisions of the work are draped in overlapping phrases, there are two subsections, one that begins at m. 13 with the basses, and the other begin-ning at m. 31 when a repeat of the music fi rst introduced by basses and tenors in m. 23 is heard again.

The fi rst section opens with a single voice-part singing a melody that is twen-ty-six beats long. This is extremely long when compared to the melodic frag-ments used in the fi nal section, which are fourteen beats (“anima mea”) and nine

beats (“ad te Deus”) in length. In the second section, beginning at m. 23, the basses and tenors are paired in their imi-tation, as are the sopranos and altos. But in the third section, beginning with the words “anima mea,” the texture thickens, as not only one melodic idea is imitated, but another melodic fragment on “ad te Deus” is sung simultaneously. In this last section, the distance of the entries between one melodic fragment and the next is sometimes only two beats. Look-ing at the work as a whole, this progres-sion from single voice to paired voices to full contrapuntal equality is effectively responsible for the forward motion and eventual climax.

In this motet, Palestrina never let a cadence have any sense of fi nality until

Paul Salamunovich and Pope John Paul II, 1985. The St. Charles Borromeo Choir had the privilege of singing for this future saint in a private audience in the Vatican’s Clementine Hall.


the fi nal one. Every linear cadence is interrupted by voices dropping out or voices continuing beyond the cadence note, giving the whole work a seamless quality. The diluting of the strength of cadences occurs at measures 12, 22, 31, and 41. This work represents the epitome in music of what has come to be known as the High Renaissance style.

Chora l Tone

My foundation of choral tone is based on how one would sing chant. The sound is built upon

the male falsetto—a tone that is away from the chest voice, a tone that is buoyant and feels as if it were fl oating on a bed of air. I have the men sing in falsetto a high “D” on the “oo” vowel and ask the altos to match that sound, turning the altos into countertenors. In this way, when the two parts sing their own part, they sound identical. This establishes the basic timbre of the choir. This sound becomes an axle or anchor around which all the other parts function. My sound for Renais-sance music comes from those altos, keeping in mind that the alto part was the highest of the men’s voices at that time since women were not allowed to sing in church. Today, the sounds of sopranos around the world are nation-alistic—the English sound is different from the French, is different from the singers in Slavic countries, etc. Their tone is strongly affected by the way that they speak their language. But the male alto sound is universal. No matter where one goes, the male alto sound is the same.

My ideal tone for chant and Renais-sance music should fl oat, be buoyant, be spiritual, and be simply awesome. In order to create that sound, the singer needs to use more breath and create space in the mouth with the soft

palette raised. Sometimes I’ll imitate how a British gentleman or English chorister would say the word “God.” This English sound has great space in the mouth as a result of raising the soft palette and dropping the jaw. I also have used the analogy of placing a short pencil, sharpened on both ends, between the tongue and the roof of the mouth. This position is guaranteed to produce a head tone!

For this type of music, I hear a tone that is away from the chest voice and built on the use of the head tone for all of the voices. My aim would be to achieve the following ideals:

• Sopranos singing lightly

• Altos sounding like countertenors

• Tenors matching the sound of the altos

• Basses lightening the tone so that the sound never has the feeling of “growling”

I tell the sopranos to place the sound behind their front teeth—“Don’t let me see your teeth!”When the basses become too aggressive, I might say: “Basses, why are you so angry? Be gentle and sing with love.” I also like for the singers to shape their mouths as if they were singing German umlauts. This makes all the vowels consistent and helps to avoid the interruption of the musical line. I never say “no vibrato,” because I always want a shimmer to the tone. Instead, I might say, “Keep the tension in the line from here to there.” I will urge singers to put the sound behind the top lip, have eyes open as large as saucers (it opens the back of the throat), and drop the jaw to the fl oor.

Phras ing the Rena issance L ine

The music of the Renaissance needs to show restraint of tempo, dynamics, and expressiveness, but it still needs to communicate its message. Accents in chant and in music of the Renaissance come entirely from word stress. In rehearsing, I draw attention to the ac-cented word or syllable by preparing the accent with a slight crescendo and then backing off at the last minute as if to say, “Now…only kidding!” Let the accented syllable or word blossom;



treat it or shape it as < >. At the peak of the phrase, I will ask

the singers to add a short decrescendo and put above the note the letters “hb,” meaning hold back. Or, I use the fol-lowing analogy: A little boy is held up by his father in order to see over the crowd. As the father brings him down, the child says, “Oh no, Daddy, just a little longer.” To encourage singers to hold on to the top notes, I might say to the singers, “How’s the view up there!” And then, after the stressed syl-lable, the singer should immediately crescendo in preparation for the next accent as if someone were riding a bicycle up a hill and after reaching the top, coasts downward to the next spot.

Vocally lift or caress the accented syllable; don’t strike it. Pull the note, stretch it, lean on it. The rise of the line should receive activity or energy like the arsis in a chant line; and accented syllables, especially those extending over several notes, should be activated for the entire length of the word or syllable. My singers have heard me say things like: “Energize the accented syllable for its full duration,” “lift the note,” “activate the sound,” and “stir up the phrase.”

All of these commands are related to the same message. This activity can be diagrammed somewhat as if the singer were performing the phrasing as seen in Figure 1.

should keep a sense of “yearning” in the performance of this music that refl ects the meaning of the text. In order to not destroy the line, I ask the same umlaut position—rounding the lips—on “ita” beginning in m. 23, instead of the commonly heard spread sound of “ee.” To avoid getting stuck on the fi rst syllable, which impairs the forward motion of a line of music, I will urge the singers to feel as if they already have been singing before their entrance. When low in the range, sing-

Paul Salamunovich in his home offi ce. The wall of pictures is fi lled with memorabilia refl ecting his work with Igor Stravinsky, Roger Wagner, Maurice Durufl é, Zubin Mehta, Andy Williams, and Robert de Niro, among others.

In the opening phrase of “Sicut cervus,” I ask that the “si” of “sicut” be sung as if it were an umlaut with lips forward and the sound placed behind the upper teeth. Then I guide the sing-ers to let the music lift slightly into “cervus.” And the “de” of “desiderat” should be hardly touched so that it doesn’t interrupt the line. Never let the music stop. In this fi rst line, everything goes toward the word “aquarum.” This is the phraseological accent that gives direction to the music. One


ers should sing in a sotto voce voice.The music and line should always

have a sense of forwardness to it, just as one would strive to do in chant. There needs to be a tension in the line, pulling and giving a little, with the end of one syllable being the begin-ning of another. And the last syllable is always the gentlest and softest. In “Sicut cervus” (and in other works of this nature), I tell my singers not to rush the eighth-notes with phrases such as, “Give them their full length,” “Show them how much you love them,” and “Don’t forget the little guy.”

And suspensions are so important because they not only sound beautiful, but they often defi ne the cadence and

indicate the end of a section. Locate all suspensions and make them ex-pressive by not letting the voice that makes the tension (usually that one having the tied note) diminish until the dissonance is heard. For me, sus-pensions in this music have the same feeling as when you pinch your skin until it hurts a little, but when you let go, it feels so good.

Rehear sa l Procedures

First, I would read the text, give the choir a literal translation, and talk about its meaning. Then the singers would be asked to circle all of the

accented words or syllables in their own parts. I would try to voice the choir like an English choir with the altos sounding like countertenors, the tenors like the altos, the sopranos on a “loo,” slightly above a hum, and the basses in their head voice, away from a rough chest voice. Sometimes I have everyone, including men in falsetto, sing the alto part of “Sicut cervus” from the beginning, encouraging them to phrase the line with care, to listen to one another, and to keep a consistency of tone. We would rehearse this part up to m. 25, and then do the same with the other parts. It might seem as if singing each part separately takes an inordinate amount of time, but with

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each part having been written in such an independent way, it’s the only way to do it. I believe that in the long run, it’s much more effi cient. Other times, I might have the sopranos and altos sing together after establishing the sound of the choir; then the tenors and basses together so that they listen to one another.

Many places demand that the syl-lable be activated—m. 9 in soprano, m. 14 in tenor, m. 21 in alto, to men-tion only a few. After doing this fi rst section, I’d jump to m. 23 where the basses and tenors begin a new section (new text, new melody) and rehearse it in a similar manner.

For the last section, beginning in m. 40, I’d ask everyone to sing, in their own parts and on words, only those notes that have the words “anima mea”; everything else should be sung on “loo.” With the last phrase, “ad te, Deus,” the principle of having energy in the beginning of the phrase, as is done in chant, should be applied here. In this way, all entries are heard, even though the counterpoint here is fairly equal as the climax builds to a stun-ning fi nish.

Conduct ing Gestures

I often conduct music from this pe-riod in circles and/or with horizontal motions of the hand. In my conduct-ing I want to push the line forward or keep the phrase energized, and always to show a maximum of breath preparation. My gesture is connected to the words of the text. In music of the Renaissance, any gesture is accept-able that moves the music forward. Anything metric is deadly! Be aware of not only entries but lines that rise and need energy. Direct your conducting gestures to those moments that need attention, even for a few seconds. Stay

with one vocal section until the next musical event occurs.

His eyes were often wide open and his mouth in the position of the next vowel—a look of amazement or surprise. He had sometimes said to choirs, “Sing with your eyes. Let your eyes sparkle.” The facial expression of surprise often has an involuntary effect on raising the soft palette and creating space in the mouth. All of this encour-ages the use of head voice, making the sound more buoyant and lyrical. He would shake his hands in order to stir up a phrase or move it forward, and the shape of his hand for a cue was often in the shape of the vowel to be sung. He would often use an upward motion in order to lift the beginning of a phrase. He admitted to being an actor and encouraged the singers to act in order to refl ect the meaning of the music. His conducting was strongly connected to his body and to a very expressive

Paul Salamunovich Rehearsal Portrait

face. His face would scrunch in seeming agony when something was too loud or something rehearsed was not refl ected in the singing. His eyes closed when he wanted a pianissimo and, sometimes, just to enjoy the beauty of the sound.

Nothing can capture the dynamic personality and fervor that Paul Sala-munovich brought to making music. He had to be seen to be believed. There have been few people as passionate about music and about getting others to make beautiful music than he was. As a person, he was emotionally charged, passionate about the pursuit of excel-lence and beauty, yet kind, honest, and loving. Perhaps this article will serve to remind those who have worked with him of specifi c techniques that he used and to assist others in exploring effective approaches to interpreting Renaissance music, while showing how special this man was in the way he touched per-formers and listeners.

His advice to young conductors:

Be honest.Seek beauty.

Share from your heart.3

NOTES

1 For those interested in fur ther study on Salamunovich’s approach and methods of making music, the author recommends the DVD documentary Paul Salamunovich: Chant and Beyond (Hal Leonard Publishing Inc., 2006), in which Salamunovich works with the Sam Houston State University Choir (Allen Hightower, conductor) and his own choir at St. Charles Borromeo Church.

2 Ron Jeffers, Translations and Annotations of Choral Repertoire: Vol. I-Sacred Latin Texts (Earthsongs press, 1988), 199.

3 Salamunovich, Chant and Beyond.

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