THE COLLABORATIVE ARRANGEMENTS OF ALICE PARKER AND ...

ABSTRACT
This document is a comprehensive survey of the two hundred and twenty-three choral
arrangements created in the collaboration between Alice Parker (b.1925) and Robert Shaw
(1916-1999). This repertoire was written between 1950 and 1967 for seventeen RCA Victor
recordings made by the Robert Shaw Chorale. Part I presents an overview of the music, title
listings, and publisher information. Part II is a history of the collaboration, beginning with its
genesis and the working relationship between the two. Their work occurred in the “Golden Age”
of choral music in America and during the American folk music revival, both of which
contributed to commercial album sales and the fame of Shaw and the Chorale.
Part III describes the style of the arrangements, whose nineteen style characteristics are
demonstrated in excerpts from six different songs. A detailed method developed by Dr. Parker
for identifying distinguishing features of these arrangements is applied to one of the folk hymns.
Over half of the Parker-Shaw arrangements are then compared in spreadsheets, found in
Appendix III, with successive appendices presenting summaries of the results of the
comparisons. This process reveals, among other things, the central role of melody and
counterpoint in determining the nature of this music, and the arrangers’ preference for working
with melodies based on traditional church modes and gapped scales over those with strong tonal
implications.
Part IV demonstrates that the enduring quality of this repertoire can be credited
principally to Shaw’s comprehensive grasp of both classical and popular music, and Parker’s
mastery of Shaw’s arranging technique. Also important were Parker and Shaw’s continual desire
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