Walton's Belshazzar's Feast is a cornerstone of the modern choral repertory. Commissioned by the BBC and premiered at the Leeds Festival in 1931, the works sets texts selected and arranged from the Bible by Osbert Sitwell. With its commanding baritone narrative, colourful orchestration, and jubilant choral finale, this dramatic re-telling of a well-known Biblical story is as popular today as it was at its premiere almost eighty years ago.

Edited by early music experts Hugh Keyte and Andrew Parrott, this anthology of Christmas carols is the most comprehensive collection ever made, spanning seven centuries of caroling in Britain, continental Europe, and North America. Containing music and text of 201 carols, many in more than one setting, the book is organized in two sections: composed carols, ranging from medieval Gregorian chants to modern compositions, and folk carols, including not only traditional Anglo-American songs but Irish, Welsh, German, Czech, Polish, French, Basque, Catalan, Sicilian, and West Indian songs as well. Each carol is set in four-part harmony, with lyrics in both the original language and English. Accompanying each song are detailed scholarly notes on the history of the carol and on performance of the setting presented. The introduction to the volume offers a general history of carols and caroling, and appendices provide scholarly essays on such topics as fifteenth-century pronunciation, English country and United States primitive traditions, and the revival of the English folk carol. The Oxford Book of Carols, published in 1928, is still one of Oxford's best-loved books among scholars, church choristers, and the vast number of people who enjoy singing carols. This volume is not intended to replace this classic but to supplement it. Reflecting significant developments in musicology over the past sixty years, it embodies a radical reappraisal of the repertory and a fresh approach to it. The wealth of information it contains will make it essential for musicologists and other scholars, while the beauty of the carols themselves will enchant general readers and amateur songsters alike.

BBC Songs of Praise is a compilation of the greatest traditional hymns, the best hymns from today's writers, and the finest examples of contemporary worship songs. It offers to churches and schools the core music required for worship in a wide range of situations. The breadth and diversity of the material ensures that BBC Songs of Praise can be the key resource for any worshipping community.

This--the performers' edition of the massive New Oxford Book of Carols--is a selection of 120 carols in 173 different settings. The music, which is divided into composed carols and traditional carols, covers nine centuries of Christmas music from around the world. Popular and unknown material is included: the settings are straightforward and each carol is accompanied by a note on historical background. The emphasis is on the fresh approach to the carol, and the editors have cleared away the accretions of years to recapture the original spirit and vigor of the music. Selections from the book are featured on EMI Classic's recordings "The Carol Album," "The Christmas Album," and "Carol Album 2," performed by the Taverner Consort, Choir, and Players under the direction of Andrew Parrott.

Handel's Israelite oratorios are today little known among non-specialists, but in their own day they were unique, pioneering and extremely popular. Dating from the period 1732-1752, they combine the musical conventions of Italian opera with dramatic plots in English that are adaptations of Old Testament narratives. They constitute a form of biblical interpretation, but to date, there has been no thoroughgoing study of the theological ideas or the attitudes towards the biblical text that might be conveyed in the oratorios' libretti. This book aims to fill that gap from an interdisciplinary perspective. Combining the insights of present-day biblical studies with those of Handelian studies, Deborah W. Rooke examines the libretti of ten oratorios - Esther, Deborah, Athalia, Saul, Samson, Joseph and his Brethren, Judas Macchabaeus, Solomon, Susanna and Jephtha - and evaluates the relationship between each libretto and the biblical story on which it is based. Rooke comments on each biblical text from a modern scholarly perspective, and then compares the modern interpretation with the version of the biblical narrative that appears in the relevant libretto. Where the libretto is based on a prior dramatic or literary adaptation of the biblical narrative, she also discusses the prior adaptation and how it relates to both the biblical text and the corresponding oratorio libretto. In this way the distinctive nuances of the oratorio libretti are highlighted, and each libretto is then analysed and interpreted in the light of eighteenth-century religion, scholarship, culture and politics. The result is a fascinating exploration not only of the oratorio libretti but also of how culture and context determines the nature of biblical interpretation.

" Apostles of Rock is the first objective, comprehensive examination of the contemporary Christian music phenomenon. Some see CCM performers as ministers or musical missionaries, while others define them as entertainers or artists. This popular musical movement clearly evokes a variety of responses concerning the relationship between Christ and culture. The resulting tensions have splintered the genre and given rise to misunderstanding, conflict, and an obsessive focus on self-examination. As Christian stars Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith, DC Talk, and Sixpence None the Richer climb the mainstream charts, Jay Howard and John Streck talk about CCM as an important movement and show how this musical genre relates to a larger popular culture. They map the world of CCM by bringing together the perspectives of the people who perform, study, market, and listen to this music. By examining CCM lyrics, interviews, performances, web sites, and chat rooms, Howard and Streck uncover the religious and aesthetic tensions within the CCM community. Ultimately, the conflict centered around Christian music reflects the modern religious community's understanding of evangelicalism and the community's complex relationship with American popular culture.

Messa da Requiem is the fourth work to be published in The Works of Giuseppe Verdi. Following the strict requirements of the series, this edition is based on Verdi's autograph and other authentic sources, and has been reviewed by a distinguished editorial board--Philip Gossett (general editor), Julian Budden, Martin Chusid, Francesco Degrada, Ursula Gunther, Giorgio Pestelli, and Pierluigi Petrobelli. It is available as a two-volume set: a full orchestral score and a critical commentary. The appendixes include two pieces from the compositional history of the Requiem: an early version of the Libera me, composed in 1869 as part of a collaborative work planned as a memorial to Rossini; and the Liber scriptus, which in the original score of the Manzoni memorial Requiem was composed as a fugue in G minor. The score, which has been beautifully bound and autographed, is printed on high-grade paper in an oversized format. The introduction to the score discusses the work's genesis, instrumentation, and problems of notation. The critical commentary, printed in a smaller format, discusses the editorial decisions and traces the complex compositional history of the Requiem.

Peter Hurford is one of the most acclaimed and influential organists of our time. In this book he records the ideas which underpin his performance and teaching. As well as discussing interpretation and the place of the organ in classical music for the general reader, there is advice for the student on technical problems, and a useful description of the workings of the instrument itself.

The musical achievements of the so-called `Franco-Flemish School' have attracted many writers, yet Bruges itself has still to be put back on the map of European music history. This book describes how the people of Bruges shaped their acoustic environment and gave musical expression to their spiritual needs. It is based on a scrutiny of musical sources, stylistic trends in music, composers' achievements, and the function of musical genres; all these are seen against a reconstruction, from archival sources, of the socio-economic context of the art of music - an art which, in all its various manifestations, `high' and `low', sacred and secular, courtly and civic, polyphonic and monophonic, mirrors later medieval urban culture as a whole.

Development and practice of liturgical chant in Russia: origins, extant manuscripts, composers, notation, language, performance and relationship to the liturgy.

Contemporary worship music shapes the way evangelical Christians understand worship itself. Author Monique M. Ingalls argues that participatory worship music performances have brought into being new religious social constellations, or "modes of congregating". Through exploration of five of these modes-concert, conference, church, public, and networked congregations-Singing the Congregation reinvigorates the analytic categories of "congregation" and "congregational music." Drawing from theoretical models in ethnomusicology and congregational studies, Singing the Congregation reconceives the congregation as a fluid, contingent social constellation that is actively performed into being through communal practice-in this case, the musically-structured participatory activity known as "worship." "Congregational music-making" is thereby recast as a practice capable of weaving together a religious community both inside and outside local institutional churches. Congregational music-making is not only a means of expressing local concerns and constituting the local religious community; it is also a powerful way to identify with far-flung individuals, institutions, and networks that comprise this global religious community. The interactions among the congregations reveal widespread conflicts over religious authority, carrying far-ranging implications for how evangelicals position themselves relative to other groups in North America and beyond.

Many singers today perform Elizabethan and Jacobean lute-songs. Robert Toft offers the first help for singers in understanding the principles which governed song performance and composition in the early seventeenth century. He shows how these historical principles may be used to move and delight modern audiences. The main purpose of early seventeenth-century singing was to persuade listeners using a style of utterance that had two principal parts - to sing eloquently and to act aptly. Toft discusses these two facets of singing within a broad cultural context, drawing upon music's sister arts, poetry and oratory, to establish the nature of eloquence and action in relation to singing. He concentrates on these techniques which can be transferred easily from one medium to the other. Specifically, he draws on the two aspects of oratory which directly bear on singing: elocutio, the methods of amplifying and decorating poetry and music with figures, and pronunciatio, techniques of making figurative language inflame the passions of listeners. The arrangement of the material has been inspired by the method of schooling William Kempe prescribed in 1588. The first part of the book examines elocutio, for singers need to understand the structure of songs before they can sing them well. The second part considers pronunciatio and focuses on the techniques used to capture and inflame the minds of listeners, that is, the role of pronunciation in utterance, the methods for making figures and other passionate ornaments manifest, the application of divisions and graces to melodies, and the art of gesture. In the final section of the book, Toft applies the techniques of early seventeenth-century eloquent delivery to two songs - 'Sorrow sorrow stay' and 'In darknesse let mee dwell' - by one of the greatest English songwriters ever to have lived, John Dowland.

Tracing the connections between music making and built space in both historical and contemporary times, Music, Sound, and Architecture in Islam brings together domains of intellectual reflection that have rarely been in dialogue to promote a greater understanding of the centrality of sound production in constructed environments in Muslim religious and cultural expression. Representing the fields of ethnomusicology, anthropology, art history, architecture, history of architecture, religious studies, and Islamic studies, the volume's contributors consider sonic performances ranging from poetry recitation to art, folk, popular, and ritual musics-as well as religious expressions that are not usually labeled as "music" from an Islamic perspective-in relation to monumental, vernacular, ephemeral, and landscape architectures; interior design; decoration and furniture; urban planning; and geography. Underscoring the intimate relationship between traditional Muslim sonic performances, such as the recitation of the Qur'an or devotional songs, and conventional Muslim architectural spaces, from mosques and Sufi shrines to historic aristocratic villas, gardens, and gymnasiums, the book reveals Islam as an ideal site for investigating the relationship between sound and architecture, which in turn proves to be an innovative and significant angle from which to explore Muslim cultures.

In the 1960s, Jewish music in America began to evolve. Traditional liturgical tunes developed into a blend of secular and sacred sound that became known in the 1980s as "American Nusach." Chief among these developments was the growth of feminist Jewish songwriting. In this lively study, Sarah M. Ross brings together scholarship on Jewish liturgy, U.S. history, and musical ethnology to describe the multiple roots and development of feminist Jewish music in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Focusing on the work of prolific songwriters such as Debbie Friedman, Rabbi Geela Rayzel Raphael, Rabbi Hanna Tiferet Siegel, and Linda Hirschhorn, this volume illuminates the biographies and oeuvres of innovators in the field, and shows how this new musical form arose from the rich contexts of feminism, identity politics, folk music, and Judaism. In addition to providing deep content analysis of individual songs, Ross examines the feminist Jewish music scene across the United States, the reception of this music, challenges to disseminating the music beyond informal settings, and the state of Jewish music publishing. Rounding out the picture of the transformation of Jewish music, the volume contains appendixes of songs and songwriters a selection of musical transcriptions of feminist Jewish songs, and a comprehensive discography. This book will interest scholars and students in the fields of American Jewish history, women's studies, feminism, ethnomusicology, and contemporary popular and folk music.