Choral music that touches the heart

At my last class, Oct. 29, we learned that singing can be a direct conduit to the heart. 
We listened to rich examples from Bach, Brahms and the quietly radiant "Dirait-on" by Oregon-raised Morten Lauridsen and heard how composers can express themselves using human voices in ways they can’t with purely instrumental music. Think what a different experience it would be if Beethoven had not used a chorus in his Ninth Symphony.

Here are just three examples from class. First, the powerful Prologue from the opera "Mefistofele" by Arrigo Boito. It's a relentless crescendo that builds to a thrilling climax. The San Francisco Opera performs.

A beautiful arrangement of the Scottish folk song "Loch Lomand" by the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. It takes us out of the here and now and shows what a creative arranger can do with a simple song. Listen to the harmonies, the suspensions that slowly resolve, the long phrases where the singers don’t take breaths. This arrangement turns a folk song into polished art, self-consciously slow, artfully shaped.

Morten Lauridsen's ravishing song "Dirait-on" from a song cycle "Les Chansons des Roses."