But I don’t mean to shortchange Mr. Bach. He is beyond reproach. We’ve sung the Johannes-Passion.
My old dear. I started singing in the womb -- my Mom and Dad loved to sing duets with each other and to each other at home. With a mind and heart following that vocal enchanting expression through life, back in the mid-'50s singing with the Syracuse University Chapel Choir was one highlight.
In it I recall performing much of this kind of thing in the bass section, including also Handel's "Messiah" (a different type but harmonious) under Dr. Arthur Poister, one of the finest organist and choral director ever.
But, dear of my heart, these could not begin to compare with the structure attainable only by men, whose voices remained below the range of the upper partial tones provided by the oral cavity resonating at particular frequencies by which the human ear discerns which vowel is being sung, regardless of the pitch df intonation, as researched and defined by Hermann von Helmholtz, the physician and physicist who wrote the well-known volume "On The Sensations Of Tone" -- the sounds of the human voice. In it he mentions the unusual perfectly harmonious chord structure obtained by a male quartet singing four-part harmony, and tones heard other than the ones being written in their arrangements.
Without going further on the theoretical aspects, I beg you to hear through this performance of the Irish tune "Oh, Danny Boy" arranged for and sung by The Suntones International Champions (click here).
As you listen, please open your ears to hear the notes that are not from the pitches of the notes in the arrangement, but of the amplitude of the combined upper partial tone resonances, each of the same frequency, arising from the oral cavities intoning the same vowel! (See ""SingWise" (click here) about these formants.
This makes chords heard that are extremely rich, and not occurring with accompaniment by a tempered instrument, nor of notes in a range which the female voices block from resonance. Listen carefully, and you will hear quite loud notes wafting above the ranges of the notes being sung. They begin about the range of the female alto voice, as Helmholtz has predicted from the scale of frequencies pertaining to and resonant with the particularly key chosen for their arrangement (which is E-flat, by the way,correspondeingly in good agreeent with the pitches of the vowel formants)..
Having done this, let me ask you to please hear out the same song done by a chorus of more than 180 men to the very end. The Moral Majority" (click here), of the Dallas, Texas area, an International Champion also.
Please note at the last final cadence the men's voices comprise a range of about two and a half octaves, but the final chord having notes that cover about five octave!
And considering the topic, t would seem that for you, as for me, the height of the richness and emotion ought to bring out one's tears in response. Does that not equal -- nay, far supersede the capabilities of the G-minor piece of your Tallis group, and that of the Palestrina group also?
(Written with a sympathetic but advanced musical view)