One of my favorite Alice Parker pieces is her arrangement of “What Shall We Do With The Drunken Sailor.”
This week I’m recommending some favorite Alice Parker arrangements and compositions from across her fruitful 6-decade career writing choral music.
Today: What Shall We Do With The Drunken Sailor? (link to publisher site)
Genre: Sea Shanty
Voicing: TTBB A cappella
Sea shanties are understandably part of the traditional core of TTBB Choirs and while my own taste runs more expansive, there are some cornerstones of the repertoire that are well worth programming. Alice Parker’s settings of shanties are among them. Sea shanties have had a moment in the last few years, actually, but their big choral moment came from the Robert Shaw Chorale’s 1961 album. With the arranging vision of Alice Parker and Robert Shaw, the sea shanty was simultaneously elevated and deeply connected to the melodic and rhythmic core of the genre.
The arrangement pays homage to the shanty’s start as a work song with drone and rhythmic vitality. The nature of the tune and the text, though, compelled Ms. Parker to explore some humor (with a 3/4 “drunken” section including a background chorus of “poop poop” – always fun with high-school-aged singers! There is a sustained extended “Way hey” section leading to the last rollicking chorus, with the arrangement fading away to the drone it began with. The tune explores modality as well its rhythmic energy and is a joy to learn sing. Note: it does have extreme range challenges including a low D in the basses, so program when you have the right voices to attain them.
Video: Here’s the original recording from the Robert Shaw Chorale (1961).
A final performance practice note. I knew Alice well enough to state with full confidence that her core belief was that only 5-10% of what she envisioned could make it to the page. She anticipated – she expected – that choral musicians would use her score as a starting point for a rich interpretation, and she was bored with performances that used the score as the endpoint rather than the beginning. You must have strong musical instincts and understanding of the tradition, but you must go beyond the score.