One of my favorite Alice Parker pieces is her arrangement of “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.”
This week I’m recommending some favorite Alice Parker arrangements and compositions from across her fruitful 6-decade career writing choral music.
Today: O Come, O Come Emmanuel (link to publisher site)
Genre: Gregorian Chant
Voicing: SATB A cappella (some 3-part divisi for both SA and TB)
This might be the Parker arrangement that first drew the attention of my musical mind. As a high student, I was fascinated by the way that in the second and third verses, while the melody rolls in one section, it is accompanied by the melody at a different harmonic rhythm in the other voices.
It’s a clever musical idea, but one that works because Alice was more than clever. She found a way to make it work naturally so that it transcends clever and becomes powerful. I simply can’t imagine singing any other setting of this majestic plainchant. It enriches the melody while never overpowering it.
Video: Midway ISD Meistersingers
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.