This book is a pioneering attempt to explore the fascinating and hardly known realm of reciting poetry in medieval and Renaissance Italy. The study of more than 50 treatises on both music and poetry, as well as other literary sources and documents from the period between 1300 and 1600, highlights above all the practice of parlar cantando («speaking through singing - the term found in De li contrasti, a fourteenth-century treatise on poetry) as rooted in the art of reciting verses. Situating the practice of parlar cantando in the context of late medieval poetic delivery, the author sheds new light on the origin and history of late Renaissance opera style, which their inventors called stile recitativo, rappresentativo or, exactly, parlar cantando. The deepest roots of the Italian tradition of parlar cantando are thus revealed, and the cultural background of the birth of opera is reinterpreted and revisited from the much broader perspective of what appears to be the most important Italian mode of music making between the age of Dante and Petrarch and the beginning of Italian opera around 1600.

for women's chorus and piano. This cantata features sixteen highly-varied folk song settings, bound together in seasonal groupings to take the listener on an engaging journey through the year from Spring to Winter. The prologue implores us to 'sing and be merry', and many of the songs facilitate this with their charmingly light-hearted melodies and imaginative orchestral accompaniment. There are also darker moments, such as the haunting and heart-rending setting of 'The Unquiet Grave' in 'Autumn'. For this comprehensive new edition, the editor Graham Parlett has drawn on all available sources, providing an authoritative full score with critical commentary. This edition also makes available new materials for the version for string orchestra and piano, and a new vocal score.

This book charts the life of Arthur Sullivan-the best loved and most widely performed British composer in history. While he is best known for his comic opera collaborations with W. S. Gilbert, it was his substantial corpus of sacred music which meant most to him and for which he wanted to be remembered. His upbringing and training in church music, and his own religious beliefs, substantially affected both his compositions for the theatre and his more serious work, which included oratorios, cantatas, sacred ballads, liturgical pieces, and hymns. Focusing on the spiritual aspects of Sullivan's life-which included several years as a church organist, involvement in Freemasonry, and an undying attachment to Anglican church music-Ian Bradley uses hitherto undiscovered letters, diary entries, and other sources to reveal the important influences on his faith and his work. No saint and certainly no ascetic, he was a lover of life and enjoyed its pleasures to the full. At the same time, he had a rare spiritual sensitivity, a sincere Christian faith, and a unique ability to uplift through both his character and his music that can best be described as a quality of divine emollient.

Choral Music: A Research and Information Guide, Third Edition, offers a comprehensive guide to the literature on choral music in the Western tradition. Clearly annotated bibliographic entries guide readers to resources on key topics within choral music, individual choral composers, regional and sacred choral traditions, choral techniques, choral music education, genre studies, and more, providing an essential reference for researchers and practitioners. Covering monographs, bibliographies, selected dissertations, reference works, journals, electronic databases, and websites, this research guide makes it easy to locate relevant sources. Comprehensive indices of authors, titles, and subjects keep the volume user-friendly. The new edition has been brought up to date with entries encompassing the latest scholarship, and updated references and annotations throughout, capturing the continued growth of literature on choral music since the publication of the second edition.

for SATB (with divisions) and piano This dazzling work presents an exploration of light in its many forms and uses, from starlight and sunlight to electricity, photosynthesis, or guiding ships to safety. Both piano and voices are used pictorially, conjuring the beautifully descriptive images from Charles Bennett's text in a musical setting that contrasts moments of high energy and tranquility. Lightwaves is sure to capture the imagination and provide an illuminating take on this fascinating subject.

Jane Dolby fell in love with a fisherman - the most dangerous peacetime occupation that exists - leading her to find a place in a traditional British world that many have forgotten. Jane was not expecting to fall in love, but she did with Colin, a local fisherman in her hometown. Then one day she faces the loss every fisherman's wife fears: the disappearance of her husband when his boat overturns at sea. Three days later, the boat is finally dredged up, without Colin. At the same time as Jane struggles with her grief, she must fight to keep a roof over her family's heads. With the help and kindness of friends and strangers, the fishing world rallies around one of their own and in time, Jane forms a plan to give something back to the community that has helped her. Jane brings together 40 women from fishing communities up and down the country to release a charity single, founding The Fishwives Choir, and gives a voice to women previously unheard. SONG OF THE SEA is the true story of one woman's love and loss, and after years in which grief stole her ability to sing, she finds her own voice again.

Sing Carols! is a collection of traditional carols and Christmas songs for carol singers of all ages, compiled and arranged by composer Harry Escott. Featuring all your favourites, every song in this collection can be sung as a single unison line, with easy-to-learn second and third parts provided for some. Additionally, there are some accompaniment suggestions for all the carols that are easy to perform outside and accompanying backing tracks are available to download.

Most choirs spend their rehearsal time focusing on notes, rhythms, and precision. They rarely, if ever, discuss a song s meaning and feeling, even though those elements are precisely what draws people to the music in the first place. Thousands of books have been written about choral technique, teaching people how to sing technically well. What sets The Heart of Vocal Harmony apart is its focus on honest unified expression and the process of delivering an emotionally compelling performance. It delves into an underdeveloped vocal topic the heart of the music and the process involved with expressing it. The Heart of Vocal Harmony is not just for a cappella groups it is also for vocal harmony groups, ensembles, and choirs at all levels, with or without instruments. In addition to the process, the book features discussions with some of the biggest luminaries in vocal harmony: composers, arrangers, directors, singers, and groups including Eric Whitacre, Pentatonix, the Manhattan Transfer, and more!

The Oxford Book of Easy Flexible Anthems caters for church choirs of all types and sizes, enabling them to have at their fingertips easy music for every occasion. The collection presents flexibility of scoring in a constructive and realistic way, with particular provision for unison or two-part singing, while not forgetting SATB choirs, and a focus on ease of learning and performance. With complete coverage of the Church's year, and a fabulous range of accessible, quality material, this is a vital resource for all church choirs.

In this volume fifteen musicologists from five countries present new findings and observations concerning the production, distribution and use of music manuscripts and prints in seventeenth-century Europe. A special emphasis is laid on the Duben Collection, one of the largest music collections of seventeenth-century Europe, preserved at the Uppsala University Library. The papers in this volume were initially presented at an international conference at Uppsala University in September 2006, held on the occasion of the launching of The Duben Collection Database Catalogue on the Internet. For the first time, the entire collection had been made acessible worldwide, covering a vast number of musical and philological aspects of all items in the collection.

Choral Voices: Ethnographic Imaginations of Sound and Sacrality is about sacred and secular choirs in Goa and Shillong across churches, seminaries, schools, auditoriums, classrooms, reality TV shows, and festivals. Voice and genre emerge as social objects annotated by tradition, nostalgia, and innovation. Piety literally and metaphorically shapes the Christian lifeworld, predominantly those belonging to the Presbyterian and Catholic denominations. Indigeneity structures the political and cultural motifs in the making of the Christian musical traditions. Located at the intersection of Sociology, Anthropology, and Ethnomusicology, the choral voices emplace 'affect' and the visual-aural dispatch. Thus, sonic spectrum holds space for indigenous and global musicality. This ethnographic work will be useful for scholars researching music and sound studies, religious studies, cultural anthropology, and sociology of India.

"For the Time Being" is a pivotal book in the career of one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century. W. H. Auden had recently moved to America, fallen in love with a young man to whom he considered himself married, rethought his entire poetic and intellectual equipment, and reclaimed the Christian faith of his childhood. Then, in short order, his relationship fell apart and his mother, to whom he was very close, died. In the midst of this period of personal crisis and intellectual remaking, he decided to write a poem about Christmas and to have it set to music by his friend Benjamin Britten. Applying for a Guggenheim grant, Auden explained that he understood the difficulty of writing something vivid and distinctive about that most cliched of subjects, but welcomed the challenge. In the end, the poem proved too long and complex to be set by Britten, but in it we have a remarkably ambitious and poetically rich attempt to see Christmas in double focus: as a moment in the history of the Roman Empire and of Judaism, and as an ever-new and always contemporary event for the believer. "For the Time Being" is Auden's only explicitly religious long poem, a technical tour de force, and a revelatory window into the poet's personal and intellectual development. This edition provides the most accurate text of the poem, a detailed introduction by Alan Jacobs that explains its themes and sets the poem in its proper contexts, and thorough annotations of its references and allusions."

for SSAA unaccompanied This heartfelt setting of words by the composer begins with a pianissimo drone over which the sopranos introduce the expressive melody. With lush harmonies, moments of dynamic intensity, and an overriding sense of awe, it would make an ideal centrepiece for a Christmas or Epiphany concert or service. A version for SATB is also available.

Coronations are the grandest of all state occasions. This is the first comprehensive in-depth study of the music that was performed at British coronations from 1603 to the present, encompassing the sixteen coronations that have taken place in Westminster Abbey and the last two Scottish coronations. Range describes how music played a crucial role at the coronations and how the practical requirements of the ceremonial proceedings affected its structure and performance. The programme of music at each coronation is reconstructed, accompanied by a wealth of transcriptions of newly discovered primary source material, revealing findings that lead to fresh conclusions about performance practices. The coronation ceremonies are placed in their historical context, including the political background and the concept of invented traditions. The study is an invaluable resource not only for musicologists and historians, but also for performers, providing a fascinating insight into the greatest of all Royal events.

Choral Repertoire is the definitive and comprehensive one-volume presentation of the canon of the Western choral tradition. Designed for practicing conductors and directors, students and teachers of choral music, amateur and professional singers, scholars, and interested vocal enthusiasts, it is an account of the complete choral output of the most significant composers of this genre throughout history. Organized by era (Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and Modern), Choral Repertoire covers general characteristics of each historical era; trends and styles unique to various countries; biographical sketches of over 500 composers; and performance annotations of more than 5,000 individual works. This book will be an essential guide to programming, a reference tool for program notes and other research, and, most importantly, a key resource for conductors, instructors, scholars, and students of choral music.

Oxford Choral Classics: English Church Music assembles in two volumes around 100 of the finest examples of English sacred choral music. The second volume presents a wealth of service material suitable for use throughout the year. The evening canticles are given due space, with seventeen settings, including those by Byrd, Gibbons, Purcell, Walmisley, Stanford, Noble, Howells, Walton, and Tippett. Also included are settings of the Te Deum and Jubilate Deo, alongside seven settings of the Preces and Responses and two additional early Lord's Prayers. The selection is completed with three supplementary items: a set of previously unpublished Psalm chants by Howells, John Sanders's Good Friday Reproaches, and a written-out Order for Compline. Robert King has prepared completely new editions of all the pre-twentieth-century works, going back to the earliest and most reliable manuscripts or printed sources. Playable keyboard reductions have been added for the majority of unaccompanied items.

for SATB and organ The Gift of Charity is a gently flowing anthem. It features beautifully arching phrases, an optional soprano solo, and exultant yet tender climaxes. The text, by Selwyn Image, based on I Corinthians 13, makes it the perfect choice for weddings, but also for use all year round.

This Day unites five very different texts, both sacred and secular, in an exploration of man's relationship with the world and with God. Opening with an optimistic F sharp major setting of Emily Dickinson's 'Bring me the sunset in a cup', the work progresses through the stages of a day (or, indeed, a life): 'Awake, my soul!' (Thomas Ken), 'This Day' (Jewish text, adapted Chilcott), 'The Bright Field' (R.S. Thomas), and 'O Lord, support us' (John Henry Newman). This is powerfully evocative music embracing a range of moods and styles, with moments of joyful optimism, spiritual enlightenment, and poignancy.

(BH Large Choral). (2004, 55 minutes) Karl Jenkins' Requiem sets the traditional Latin text of the Requiem mass, including the extra movements included by Faure and Durufle Pie Jesu and In paradisum . These are interspersed with haiku "death" poems (sung in Japanese) whose delicate, epigrammatic texts provide a peaceful commentary on the liturgical words. The result is a deeply moving expression of spirituality, whose musical tying together of different cultures provides a link that is highly appropriate to the modern world. This powerful book will appeal to choirs wanting to sing an unusual but appealing and effective piece: the full scoring of the work includes a part for Japanese flute (shakuhachi) and an array of unusual drums.

An indispensable and practical guide to protecting and improving the voice. The gift of a beautiful voice is one to be preserved until old age, and will give great pleasure to the singer and the listener alike. This book will enable the singer to be able to sustain a clear tone effortlessly throughout a rehearsal or performance. The advice offered here will be invaluable to both solo and choral singers, and applies to all kinds of singing. As the voice is a living organ, understanding and exercises are needed to keep it fit just as the rest of the body does. The book provides the secrets and techniques that some singers have paid great sums for!

The crowning glory of Bach's achievements in the field of sacred music, this work is a powerful statement of Christian faith and an inspiring musical experience for musicians and music lovers. Scored for two sopranos, alto, tenor, bass, chorus, orchestra, and continuo, this towering masterpiece is reprinted here from the authoritative Bach-Gesellschaft edition.