The Voices of Children
I was looking through some notes today on one subject but came across something I hadn't appreciated before - two separate (but surprisingly related) examples of children’s voices having had great impact on composers. (This quite apart from their exquisite ‘angelic’ use as a supplement to sections of the great ‘St Matthew Passion’ of JS Bach).
During Joseph Haydn’s celebrated stay in London during 1791 he accepted an invitation to go to St Paul’s cathedral where a musical meeting was being held of a vast children’s choir (numbering some 4,000 children) who belonged to what was known as the ‘Charity Children’. Haydn noted that evening in his travel diary at having heard them, ‘Really, I was more touched by this innocent and reverent music than by any music I ever heard before’.
Exactly 60 years later, Hector Berlioz seems to have also been greatly moved by hearing the very same children’s choir. (Having been invited to London as a judge for the ongoing Great Exhibition he agreed to sing bass in the main choir for a performance given with the same ‘Charity Children’, again, estimated to be around 4,000 in all). He wrote, ‘This experience was the realisation of part of my dream – and is a proof to me that the powerful effect of music made by large numbers of performers is, really, unknown’.
The great composers do not seem to make huge technical demands of children. Their singing is profound for its simplicity.
It doesn’t exist but I can almost imagine a version of Berlioz’s ‘L’Enfance du Christ’ (his oratorio, Opus 25) where some simple part could be written for children to sing also in the lovely ‘Shepherd’s Chorus’. Perhaps there are other great but little known works which feature children singing with adults or which lend themselves to adding their unique input ?
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