Choral

The choral - Song of the faithful ones

The choral is before a whole vocal art. They are a song carried out by the assembly faithful during the office. The choral is generally articulated around several sentences short called periods of which each one rests on a rate.

Jean-Sebastien BACH, as a choirmaster, left us a large heritage in this field. Its talent lay in the harmonization of these songs. Generally leaving an existing melody (it composed some with rare exceptions of them) even of a Gregorian chant, it added three lower votes to it in order to create a harmony. (For the uninitiated persons, it is a little like passing from television " black and blanc" with the color…). These four votes could thus be carried out either by the four votes of a chorus or by an instrument (polyphonic) (example: organ). Moreover the choice of these harmonies allowed him to emphasize certain keywords of a text such as for example " mort" or " dieu". The harmonic pallet is very large and does not limit itself to the minor and major colors.

The choral like instrumental kind

The period baroque

By extension, the word indicates a part exploited Orgue, more rarely with the Clavecin, the topic of the corresponding song (one also speaks about “prelude of choral”). This form was very much used for the period baroque, with alternatives:

Choral contrapuntic
Choral running away
Choral illustrated
decorated Choral
Choral varied

All these alternatives are found in the work of Jean-Sebastien Bach, the principal Master of the choral for organ, of which it had explored all the possible harmonizations.

The traditional and modern period

After Bach, the writing of the choral for organ will evolve/move and continue under the feather of large type-setters, in particular César Franck which gives to this kind a symphonic dimension, Marcel Dupre, Charles Tournemire, Jean Langlais, Jehan Alain, etc

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