Titration is a song cycle for unaccompanied choir by American composer Shara Nova. On the CD it is performed by The Crossing and their conductor Donald Nally. It’s an interesting and unusual, indeed quite unconventional, piece but it is oddly compelling and has won a fair bit of recognition including a Gramophone “Critics Choice” award this year.
It’s rooted in Nova’s reaction to her conservative upbringing in the American South and perhaps the key line of the text is “How do I keep on feeling in this mean, mean world?” The cycle is ung continuously. There’s no break between “movements”. It’s what I can best describe as “post-modern polyphony”. The interweaving vocal lines are essentially tonal but there’s a good deal of use of extended vocal technique; speech, humming, shouting, laughing, grunting, whooping and even growling and spitting. All this around a text which is as much about textures and patterns as explicit meaning.
operaramblings 