Performance advice: Tied quavers in British (sacred) music

[Alexander Kobel]

Dear all,

especially the King's Singers et al. among you... ;-)

A few weeks ago, a conductor (whom I appreciate a lot) gave a lesson 
about how to execute tied quavers in British choral music. My whole life 
before, another conductor (whom I appreciate a lot) taught me the 
exactly opposite opinion. Researching on the topic, I find a post on
  http://jandrewowen.com/en/2015/03/19/tied-eighth-notes-in-choral-music/
mentioning both variants, and in fact the very piece we currently 
rehearse (Howell's "Like as a hart desireth the waterbrooks").
Hence, I inquire to the great community here to provide me with more 
opinions, surveys, and references...

The question is whether the singers are supposed to sing the note values 
true to notation, or whether a final quaver after a long note indicates 
that the final consonant is to be executed on the very beat where the 
note is.

For the beginning of a word, I learned that you should pronounce 
consonants exactly on the beat. Consequently, the final consonants of a 
word would be performed on the *next* beat, that is, on the beat of the 
rest.
In the meantime I've been told that some conductors in Britain prefer to 
have the consonants at the beginning of a syllable spoken *before* the 
beat, so that the vowel already is delivered with full sound *on* the 
beat. With that agreement, it would make some sense to add a short 
additional note to mark the position of an end consonant, just as a 
notational convention.

Attached are a few typical excerpts demonstrating the situation. The 
first is from Howell's "Like as the hart"; the second is from Rutter's 
Gloria, and unusual in that the final quaver is not even on a note that 
appears in the chord of the accompaniment; the last two are from Mathias 
"A babe is born", and interesting because the "cry" has no consonant to 
end in, and the final "Noel!" has an accent on the tied quaver. 
Interestingly, also the tied g in the organ pedal has an accent, which 
is obviously impossible to perform by other means than adjusting the length.


I hope I could bring my point across, and look forward to interesting 
opinions...


Cheers,
Alexander

howell.png
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rutter.png
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mathias-1.png
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mathias-2.png
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