In music, one voice per part (OVPP) is the practice of performing

choral music A choir ( ; also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which sp ...

with a single voice on each vocal line. In the specific context of

Johann Sebastian Bach Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard w ...

's works it is also known as the Rifkin hypothesis, set forth in

Joshua Rifkin Joshua Rifkin (born April 22, 1944 in New York) is an American conductor, pianist, and musicologist; he is currently a professor of music at Boston University. As a performer he has recorded music by composers from Antoine Busnois to Silvestre ...

's 1982 article and expanded in

Andrew Parrott Andrew Parrott (born 10 March 1947) is a British conductor, perhaps best known for his pioneering "historically informed performances" of pre-classical music. He conducts a wide range of repertoire, including contemporary music. He conducted th ...

's book ''The Essential Bach Choir''. Choral works featuring SATB (soprano, alto, tenor and bass) vocal parts are consequently sung by four singers when this approach is adopted. The first conductor to strongly advocate this approach to the music of Bach was the American pianist and conductor

in the 1980s. The use of solo voices in the choral music of Bach has also found champions in

Paul McCreesh Paul McCreesh (born 24 May 1960) is an English conductor. Paul McCreesh is the founder and artistic director of the Gabrieli Consort & Players. With them he has performed in major concert halls and festivals across the world. He has been the ...

Sigiswald Kuijken Sigiswald Kuijken (; born 16 February 1944) is a Belgian violinist, violist, and conductor known for playing on period and original instruments. Biography Kuijken was born in Dilbeek, near Brussels. He was a member of the Alarius Ensemble of ...

and

Konrad Junghänel Konrad Junghänel (born 27 February 1953) is a German lutenist and conductor in the field of historically informed performance, the founder and director of the vocal ensemble Cantus Cölln. Career Junghänel studied at the Hochschule für Musi ...

. The approach is still somewhat controversial and recordings of Bach's music featuring solo voices in choral movements have met with mixed reviews. Proponents cite the fact that there are rarely additional copies of the vocal parts. One reason for not favouring one voice per part is that there is evidence that Bach preferred to use more singers in performances at

Leipzig Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...

. Furthermore, the presence, absence and omission of ''solo'' and ''tutti'' markings in scores, as well as the ambiguity in their meaning, brings further doubt to the question of whether Bach used more than one singer per part or not.Braatz (2010). pp. 12–16 The

initialism An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in ''NATO'' (''North Atlantic Treaty Organization''), but sometimes use syllables, as ...

OVPP was first coined in the

Internet mailing list A mailing list is a collection of names and addresses used by an individual or an organization to send material to multiple recipients. The term is often extended to include the people subscribed to such a list, so the group of subscribers is re ...

"The Bach Recordings Discussion Group" in the mid 1990s by Steven Langley Guy. The initialism seems to have been adopted more widely since that time.

References

{{Reflist

Sources

* Rifkin, Joshua. 1982. “Bach's Chorus: A Preliminary Report”. ''

The Musical Times ''The Musical Times'' is an academic journal of classical music edited and produced in the United Kingdom and currently the oldest such journal still being published in the country. It was originally created by Joseph Mainzer in 1842 as ''Mainze ...

'' 123 (1677). Musical Times Publications Ltd.: 747–54. doi:10.2307/961592. Choral music Baroque music