12 days of musical terminology, day 8 - antiphonal

Another quick one today (happy new year, by the way!)

Antiphonal originally had a more specific meaning, but when the term is used during our choir rehearsals these days, it refers to music in which the choir is divided into two halves which sing in turn. Usually the two halves consist of an SATB choir 1 and an SATB choir 2, but there are other possibilities - for example, in my a cappella arrangement of I Was Glad, which is written for SSAATB, the antiphonal section in the middle ended up as S1 A1 T in one half and S2 A2 B in the other). (You can hear the original version (including the usually-omitted Vivat bit, because the Queen was there, but annoyingly missing the start of the intro) performed at St Paul's for the Queen's Golden Jubilee here. The main antiphonal bit I'm thinking of - starting with the word "Jerusalem" - is at about 1:50, but the bit just before is actually antiphonal too. It's just not as obvious, because it's not choir 1 vs choir 2.)

Other famous antiphonal bits... let's see. There's lots of it in Belshazzar's Feast - so much, in fact, that I've been really annoyed when we've performed it WITHOUT sitting in two choirs (luckily we HAVE sat in two choirs the last few times, so I was happy). The best bit is the a cappella "Trumpeters and Pipers" section (starts at about 6:50 on the video). There's also lots in Gerontius, particularly during the big C major chorus. Komm, Jesu, Komm is a great example too. There are many more - I'm sure you can think of lots.

It's believed that this style (sometimes known as the Venetian polychoral style) originated at St Mark's in Venice, where the two choir lofts were so far apart that there was a sound delay between them. Rather than try (and fail) to get the two sides to sing together, composers took advantage of the separation. (By the way, in cathedrals and large churches, where the two choirs sit on opposite sides, traditionally choir 1 is called decani and choir 2 is cantoris.)