Part, O Adonai
The second installment of our O Antiphons for Advent comes from the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt (b. 1935). Pärt’s restrained and deeply spiritual approach is rooted in medieval chant and also the low-register sonorities of Russian choral music. He joined the Eastern Orthodox Christian faith in 1972, and his compositional output focuses heavily on sacred choral music, although he composes purely instrumental music as well.
Pärt left Estonia in 1980 when it was still under Russian dominance to settle first in Vienna and then Berlin where he could compose more freely. He became for quite a few years the most performed living composer in the world, and at other times second only to John Williams.
I find something particularly compelling about a men’s choir with its rich, deeper sonorities. It’s not just the absence of higher voices. Men’s voices can blend in a way that mixed voices do not. They combine in a darker, more powerful sound. O Adonai takes full advantage of male voices.
Men’s choirs have played a prominent role in sacred music and in the folk music of certain cultures like Russia and Wales. Many German communities have an amateur Männerchor that sings music closely associated with traditional German culture.
Of course, another well-known genre of male voices deserves mention: Barbershop, which requires a very high level of virtuosity. The Swedish ensemble Zero8 has its roots in Barbershop and describes itself as “a Stockholm based male choir that takes the best aspects of the barbershop genre and applies it to everything else and vice versa.”
| O Adonai, et Dux domus Israel, qui Moysi in igne flammae rubi apparuisti, et ei in Sina legem dedisti: veni ad redimendum nos in brachio extento. | O Adonai, and leader of the House of Israel, who appeared to Moses in the fire of the burning bush, and gave him the law on Sinai: Come and redeem us with an outstretched arm. |