Page:Essentials in Conducting.djvu/45

Rh characteristics of the group depending upon the number and position of the accents in each measure. There exists, however, a certain amount of non-measured vocal music, and a word concerning the most common varieties (recitative and Anglican chant) will perhaps be in order before closing our discussion of beating time.

In conducting the accompaniment of a vocal solo of the recitative style, and particularly that variety referred to as recitative secco, the most important baton movement is a down-beat after each bar. The conductor usually follows the soloist through the group of words found between two bars with the conventional baton movements, but this does not imply regularly spaced pulses as in the case of measured music, and the beats do not correspond in any way to those of the ordinary measure of rhythmic music. They merely enable the accompanying players to tell at approximately what point in the measure the singer is at any given time, the up-beat at the end of the group giving warning of the near approach of the next group.

In the case of the Anglican chant, it should be noted that there are two parts to each verse: one, a reciting portion in which there is no measured rhythm; the other, a rhythmic portion in which the pulses occur as in measured music. In the reciting portion of the chant, the rhythm is that of ordinary prose speech, punctuation marks being observed as in conventional language reading. This makes it far more difficult to keep the singers together, and in order to secure uniformity, some conductors give a slight movement of the baton for each syllable; others depend upon a down-beat at the beginning of each measure together with the lip movements made by the conductor himself and followed minutely by the chorus.