Item Detail
-
12973
-
1
-
0
-
English
-
J. Spencer Cornwall : The Salt Lake Mormon Tabernacle Choir Years, 1935-57
-
University of Missouri at Kansas City
-
Ph.D. diss.
-
"The purpose of this study was to determine the extent of J. Spencer Cornwall's influence upon the repertoire of the Salt Lake Mormon Tabernacle Choir. J. Spencer Cornwall, director of the Salt Lake Mormon Tabernacle Choir from 1935-1957, was largely responsible for its emergence as a nationally known choir. During his tenure the Choir made its first stereo recordings, first television appearance, and first movie soundtracks, and the quality of the national weekly broadcast was greatly improved. Cornwall also took the Choir on its first European tour in 1955. This study made a descriptive survey of ninety-eight choral arrangements by Cornwall. The majority were written for male voices and were hymn settings in the English language. The second largest number of settings were for SATB voices and typically expanded to eight parts and featured contrasting textures of women's and men's voices or the altos with four-part men. One of Cornwall's most lasting contributions to the Choir was in the quality of literature performed. He added about 800 works to the repertoire. A comparison of radio broadcast literature was made for the year of 1947-1957 and 1957-1967 for Cornwall and Condie, his successor, respectively. A Pearson Product - Moment Correlation Coefficient (r) was computed for the data in this study. A relationship of .6 or above was considered to be strong. For all octavos in the study r = .3. For all octavos with fifteen or more performances r = -.7 and for ten or more performances r = -.6." [Author's abstract]