AVE MARIS STELLA: ON IMAGINING YOUR VOICE AS THE BOW OF A VIOLIN.
I've often wondered why I find choral works that are built around  string accompaniment more pleasing  to the ear than say, works built around full orchestras, or organs, or horns. Not being any kind of expert in  matters related to music composition (or music or much else for that matter), I just assumed that my ear (and maybe many other ears) found the simultaneous vibrations of strings and voice sonically solicitous. That maybe, the sounds of voice and bowed string share much in common. As we sing, we push air over the vocal cords, creating vibrating waves of sound. As a string is bowed, the vibration runs up the string and is transmitted thru the bridge which shapes the timbre of the sound as it is projected thru the body of the violin, just as the vocal cords help shape the timbre of the sound as the air passes over them and into the "body" of the head cavity. Maybe.
Perhaps the most thrilling example of this felicitous voice/string marriage that I have ever heard is AVE by Cecelia MacDowell. Strings and voices are one from the opening measures where the strings call and answer with lush pulling sounds and the voices then follow, almost a tonal echo of the strings. Back and forth, the dance goes on for the rest of a 12-minute composition that seems suspended in time.  In the first sections the bowing and voicing are all long and lyrical, legato and loving, then, sandwiched between two incredibly otherworldly soprano recitatives, comes the stormy middle section, here strings bow sharp and fast and voices respond in kind, a furious energy that is only dissipated and calmed by the soprano solo that follows.
I first listened to AVE two years ago on a hot July morning. I had just finished a long run and a swim down at the beach. I lay back on the gravel listening to my choral playlist (yes, you can actually exercise to choral music!). I had downloaded  AVE from youtube some weeks earlier and never listened to it. As I slowly dried in the sun, the strings played the opening bars and the voices followed in kind. My eyes popped open taking in the dazzling blue sky. The opening figure pulled at something deep inside me. Voices and strings became one glorious sound: lyrics faded into the background, voices began to sound more like violins, the violins more like voices. I was transported to a world awash in rich, lush phrases. Waves rolled gently in and out, two ospreys hovered overhead in the shimmering blue sky.
There was a pause, as though a collective breath was being taken, and then, the opening figure was repeated, but this time the strings had a far deeper emotional fullness, the notes fairly bursting with feeling, and then choir answered with equal intensity: Deo, Deo, Deo Patri. Here is the very heart of the piece, at rehearsal 28, all the elegiac energy that has been building comes pouring out. And in that moment I felt something inside me rising into the clear morning sky as though some dark energy was floating up and away from me.
Now, having read up on this work, I know that MacDowell wrote this in 2001 and it was first performed in November, just months after the attacks off September 11th. Written as a peace anthem, it is perhaps a prayer for the dead and a prayer for the living, for the survivors. It is a prayer for hope in a dark hour. And, at rehearsal 28, our prayer swells, soars and crescendos in a heartfelt and heart-full plea for a peaceful way forward for all humankind. Ave Maris Stella. Hail Star of the Sea.

"My guest today is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, arguably the most precocious of the precocious classical composers. And quite the clothes horse I might add, that's some jacket Wolfgang...may I call you Wolfgang?"
"Oh, dear me no Dick, call me Wolfie, and I love your cravat by the way." Mozart swivels boyishly in his chair and blinks his overlarge eyes. He is even more petite than Dick Caveat, though they bear a noticeable resemblance, like long-lost brothers.
"I would like to begin by asking you about Regina Coeli, which is being performed this season by the Bagaduce Chorale"
"A wonderful chorale and such a charming music director."
"Yes, isn't she. You do manage to keep up on things from the afterlife?"
"Oh absolutely, I am quite intrigued by hip hop in fact, it so reminds me of the scattalogical ditties I used to love to compose, such fun, don't you know!"
"Yes you were certainly prolific Wolfie, all those notes! Tell me, I have heard that some musicians feel that you might....how shall I say this...that you use far too many notes, that your compositions are like musical stream of consciousness, that you use more notes than any measure needs or wants....that...that...you are a show off!"
"Oh, but of course I am a show off and my music is all about showing off. Why, just listen to the soprano solo, it fairly shrieks at the audience "look at the amazing things I can do with my voice." You know, I was going to open a Twitter account, but I knew I would never be able to restrain myself to just 140 characters."
"Yes, I can see your point, but all those notes, that showing off as you call it, why do you need to use so many?"
Mozart laughs delightedly and his voice get even higher pitched if that is possible."Well of course Bach also used far too many notes, but he was a mathematician, not an artist. Are you shocked Dick? Good! Have you read Godell, Escher, Bach? A fascinating book that Bach admires greatly. Even though Bach uses as many notes as me (sometimes many more) he was doing math all the time, just subdividing phrases over and over. It's quite the mathematical trick, don't you know?"
"And you, why are your phrases different than Bach's?"
"Why, I give my phrases different voices, I give them colors, yes, I paint with phrases, sometimes pointillist, sometimes big running washes of fingerpaint, some are me wilding chasing my darling Constanze around the dining table, or embracing in a tender kiss, sometimes in measures side-by-side."
"Well, not being a musician myself, I wonder how musicians can tell what voice a phrase is written in. Is it dynamics, is it tempo?"
"Oh, it's that of course but it is also the notes themselves, each note's relations to the notes around them, just like people. Maybe it's a step-step-step-step up and down phrase, maybe it hops and skips up and down, a third a fith, a third, a fifth. You know Dick, some combinations of notes are more affectionate than others." Wolfie smiles slyly and batts his big eyes. "Bach's notes don't have the human relationships that my notes have with each other, oh yes, my notes are tangled in love, in love triangles, in trysts, in tragedy, in trust, in trials, in triumphs, and, oh, just the general joy of love."
"That alliteration was like one of your big running washes of fingergpaint. But it's remarkable, I had no idea notes could do that. I always sort of thought of them as numbers...You know Wolfie, nowadays there are all kinds of Bach Festivals but not so many Mozart festivals...."
"Oh, Dickie, you really are trying to provoke me aren't you! But you know why that is don't you? Bach's music keeps people calm, it motors along in...what would a mathematician say...it motors along on a linear (and rather dull) emotional plane. While my music, it stirs the blood, it excites the listener, it boils the emotions!"
"Boils the emotions, well you heard it here first on the Dick Caveat Show. Mozart's music boils the emotions! Wolfie, it has been an absolute pleasure to chat with you, I'm so glad you were able to make it down here."
"Oh, Dick, really, it has been my absolute pleasure. By the way, tell the Bagaduce Chorale when the sing Regina Coeli, they should be filled with that all-consuming joy of love. One moment they will be chasing their lover around the table, the next tenderly embracing, then playing with their child, or tickling a puppy...it's all love and giggles."
"Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, still going strong, still as mischievious as ever. I'm Dick Caveat...until next time"