During the lifetime of Guillaume Du Fay (c. 1400 1474) the motet underwent a profound transformation. Because of the protean nature of the motet during this period, problems of definition have always stood in the way of a full understanding of this crucial shift. Through a comprehensive survey of the surviving repertory, Julie Cumming shows that the motet is best understood on the level of the subgenre. She employs new ideas about categories taken from cognitive psychology and evolutionary theory to illuminate the process by which the subgenres of the motet arose and evolved. One important finding is the nature and extent of the crucial role that English music played in the genre's transformation. Cumming provides a close reading of many little-known pieces; she also shows how Du Fay's motets were the product of sophisticated experimentation with generic boundaries.

52 CCM faves in a value-priced songbook: All to You * Be Near * Breathe * Come On Back to Me * Deeper * Faithful to Me * I Wanna Sing * King * Maker of All Things * Oceans from the Rain * Pray * Song of Love * These Hands * This Is Your Life * Wisdom * more.

The normative edition for all who sing, choir and congregation alike, containing all hymns and service music.

Larnelle Harris is one of the most renowned Christian vocalists of our generation. Aside from his numerous accolades in the recording industry, Larnelle has been a stalwart figure of integrity, choosing to always put his marriage and children above his career. In his first memoir, Larnelle honestly shares some of the most difficult moments of his life - from losing his voice for a year to being attacked for his color. And he humbly credits the people who shaped his life and career early on, offering timeless insights into how God can use ordinary people to do extraordinary things.

(Basic Band II). Grab your bass and join the caroling party with this book featuring 24 holiday classics, including: Carol of the Bells * Deck the Hall * God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen * Hark The Herald Angels Sing * Jingle Bells * Joy to the World * O Christmas Tree * O Come, All Ye Faithful * O Holy Night * Up on the Housetop * We Three Kings of Orient Are * We Wish You a Merry Christmas * and more.

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.

Michael Tippett's oratorio A Child of Our Time was written at the beginning of the second world war as an expression of "man's inhumanity to man." This Handbook discusses the significant musical and literary features of this remarkable work within its specific historical, social and stylistic context. Attention is given to the shaping of Tippett's own text as well as its musical representation. Also of importance is the initial critical reception of the work, a reception that defined certain responses that still surround the work today.

Monteverdi's Vespers is an exceptional collection of sacred music, both in the inventiveness of the compositions that it contains and in the debate that it has provoked over its use in the seventeenth century and over Monteverdi's intentions in publishing it. This handbook provides all the information that the reader needs for an in-depth appreciation of the musical settings themselves, of the debate that surrounds the original intention of the volume and of the problems of performing the music today. The book includes the texts and plainsongs used by Monteverdi, and a discography.

Monteverdi's Vespers is an exceptional collection of sacred music, both in the inventiveness of the compositions that it contains and in the debate that it has provoked over its use in the seventeenth century and over Monteverdi's intentions in publishing it. This handbook provides all the information that the reader needs for an in-depth appreciation of the musical settings themselves, of the debate that surrounds the original intention of the volume and of the problems of performing the music today. The book includes the texts and plainsongs used by Monteverdi, and a discography.

This comprehensive re-evaluation of John Stainer's life and work demonstrates that there was a great deal more to admire beyond The Crucifixion. The thoroughness of the research is impressive, based on profusion of sources, many of them little used until now.... A text that carries great authority, plus (almost equally important) a new and generously annotated list of Stainer's works both musical and literary. At last, Stainer has got his due, once and for all.'NICHOLAS TEMPERLEY, Professor of Music Emeritus, University of Illinois. One of the most important musicians of the Victorianera, Stainer is known for his considerable influence as a composer of Anglican liturgical music, and his corpus of secular works - madrigals and songs - presents many surprises. He was a brilliant organist, a fine scholar, theorist, pedagogue and teacher - multifarious attributes which this study elucidates and understands as part of his wider musical personality. Stainer's life is a story of extraordinary social mobility. From lowly origins he rose to become organist of St Paul's Cathedral and Professor of Music at Oxford. Yet after his premature death in 1901 he suffered almost immediate neglect except for the popularity of a handful of works, among them I saw the Lord and The Crucifixion. In rehabilitating Stainer and the crucial contribution he made to musical life, this book examines the breadth of his work as a composer, and the important role he played in the regeneration of sacredand secular musical institutions in Victorian Britain. JEREMY DIBBLE is Professor of Music at Durham University. His previous books include studies of Parry and Stanford and he is the author of numerous articles on British music. He is currently working on a dictionary of hymnology.

The book examines from various viewpoints Britten's War Requiem, written in 1962 to celebrate the consecration of the new Coventry Cathedral and uniting the famous anti-war poetry of Wilfred Owen with the Latin Requiem Mass. Britten's and Owen's pacifist beliefs are compared, and the chronology of the compositional process unraveled from documentary and manuscript sources. The musical language is analyzed in detail, and the fluctuating critical responses to the score are assessed.

The German Requiem is Brahms' largest work, written for orchestra, chorus and two soloists. It made Brahms an international name, and the scope and technique of the composition brought him not only a new audience but also comparison with Bach and Beethoven. In the past fifty years it has found new critical support as an original and progressive work. This detailed study examines its history and controversial reception, analyzes its textual and musical structure, and discusses performing traditions from Brahms' time until the present.

A survey of the huge importance of Thomas Tallis, the `Father of Church Music', on Victorian musical life. In Victorian England, Tallis was ever-present: in performances of his music, in accounts of his biography, and through his representation in physical monuments. Known in the nineteenth century as the 'Father of English Church Music', Tallis occupies a central position in the history of the music of the Anglican Church. This book examines in detail the reception of two works that lie at the stylistic extremes of his output: Spem in alium, revived in the 1830s, though generally not greatly admired, and the Responses, which were very popular. A close study of the performances, manuscripts and editions of these works casts light on the intersections between the antiquarian, liturgical and aesthetic goals of nineteenth-century editors and musicians. By tracing Tallis's reception in nineteenth-century England, the author charts the hold Tallis had on the Victorians and the ways in which Anglican - and English - identity was defined and challenged. Dr SUE COLE is a research associate at the Faculty of Music, University of Melbourne.

Verdi's Requiem is one of the most frequently performed works of the choral repertoire, and one of Verdi's most important nonoperatic works. In this new handbook, David Rosen discusses the work's composition and performance history, and analyzes each of the seven movements, considering Verdi's interpretation of the liturgical text, with reference to settings by Mozart and Cherubini. Rosen also considers the work's coherence and the controversial issue of its generic status--the degree to which it is "operatic."

In this wide-ranging and challenging book, Ruth Smith shows that the words of Handel's oratorios reflect the events and ideas of their time and have far greater meaning than has hitherto been realized. She sheds new light on the oratorio librettists and explores literature, music, aesthetics, politics and religion to reveal Handel's texts as conduits for eighteenth-century thought and sensibility. This book enriches our understanding of Handel, his times, and the relationships between music and its intellectual contexts.

In Jewish Religious Music in Nineteenth-Century America: Restoring the Synagogue Soundtrack, Judah M. Cohen demonstrates that Jews constructed a robust religious musical conversation in the United States during the mid- to late-19th century. While previous studies of American Jewish music history have looked to Europe as a source of innovation during this time, Cohen's careful analysis of primary archival sources tells a different story. Far from seeing a fallow musical landscape, Cohen finds that Central European Jews in the United States spearheaded a major revision of the sounds and traditions of synagogue music during this period of rapid liturgical change. Focusing on the influences of both individuals and texts, Cohen demonstrates how American Jewish musicians sought to balance artistry and group singing, rather than "progressing" from solo chant to choir and organ. Congregations shifted between musical genres and practices during this period in response to such factors as finances, personnel, and communal cohesiveness. Cohen concludes that the "soundtrack" of 19th-century Jewish American music heavily shapes how we look at Jewish American music and life in the first part of the 21st-century, arguing that how we see, and especially hear, history plays a key role in our understanding of the contemporary world around us. Supplemented with an interactive website that includes the primary source materials, recordings of the music discussed, and a map that highlights the movement of key individuals, Cohen's research defines more clearly the sound of 19th-century American Jewry.

Forty seven chants, responses, choruses, introits and shorter songs are featured in the songbook. The cassette contains 21 of the songs aand demonstrates ways to use the material. Sources are Southern Africa, the Russian Orthodox church, charismatic assemblies in Central and Southern America and ancient Scottish church traditions.

Comparative studies of medieval chant traditions in western Europe, Byzantium and the Slavic nations illuminate music, literacy and culture. Gregorian chant was the dominant liturgical music of the medieval period, from the time it was adopted by Charlemagne's court in the eighth century; but for centuries afterwards it competed with other musical traditions, local repertories from the great centres of Rome, Milan, Ravenna, Benevento, Toledo, Constantinople, Jerusalem, and Kievan Rus, and comparative study of these chant traditions can tell us much about music, liturgy, literacy and culture a thousand years ago. This is the first book-length work to look at the issues in a global, comprehensive way, in the manner of the work of Kenneth Levy, the leading exponent of comparative chant studies. It covers the four most fruitful approaches for investigators: the creation and transmission of chant texts, based on the psalms and other sources, and their assemblage into liturgical books; the analysis and comparison of musical modes and scales; the usesof neumatic notation for writing down melodies, and the differences wrought by developmental changes and notational reforms over the centuries; and the use of case studies, in which the many variations in a specific text or melodyare traced over time and geographical distance. The book is therefore of profound importance for historians of medieval music or religion - Western, Byzantine, or Slavonic - and for anyone interested in issues of orality and writing in the transmission of culture. PETER JEFFERY is Professor of Music History, Princeton University. Contributors: JAMES W. McKINNON, MARGOT FASSLER, MICHEL HUGLO, NICOLAS SCHIDLOVSKY, KEITH FALCONER, PETER JEFFERY, DAVID G.HUGHES, SYSSE GUDRUN ENGBERG, CHARLES M. ATKINSON, MILOS VELIMIROVIC, JORGEN RAASTED+, RUTH STEINER, DIMITRIJE STEFANOVIC, ALEJANDRO PLANCHART.

Ian Spink, a leading authority on 17th-century English music, has carried out a remarkable new investigation of the musical sources of the Restoration period, and of the archives of every cathedral and choral foundation. For the first time, perhaps, the true character and shape of this period of musical history is revealed, taking in the work of the great men of the age, including Purcell, Locke, and Handel, and many lesser masters such as Humfrey, Blow, Clarke, Weldon, and Croft.

This is a substantial setting of the canticles of Mary and Simeon, suitable for performance in both concert and liturgical settings. The choral writing features fugal counterpoint and a chromatic soundworld rooted around the octatonic scale. The text is in English throughout, with occasional Latin interjections in the Magnificat. Bringing a fresh voice to an established genre, this setting presents a rewarding challenge for singers and the opportunity for congregations or audiences to appreciate familiar words in a new way. A version for SATB with piano and organ (ISBN 978-0-19-356329-2) is also available.

Analysis of Latin sacred music written during the century illustrates the rapid and marked change in style and sophistication. Winner of the 2007 AMS Robert M. Stevenson prize The arrival of Francisco de Penalosa at the Aragonese court in May 1498 marks something of an epoch in the history of Spanish music: Penalosa wrote in a mature, northern-oriented style, and his sacred music influenced Iberian composers for generations after his death. Kenneth Kreitner looks at the church music sung by Spaniards in the decades before Penalosa, a repertory that has long been ignoredbecause much of it is anonymous and because it is scattered through manuscripts better known for something else. He identifies sixty-seven pieces of surviving Latin sacred music that were written in Spain between 1400 and the early 1500s, and he discusses them source by source, revealing the rapid and dramatic change, not only in the style and sophistication of these pieces, but in the level of composerly self-consciousness shown in the manuscripts. Withina generation or so at the end of the fifteenth century, Spanish musicians created a new national music just as Ferdinand and Isabella were creating a new nation. KENNETH KREITNER teaches at the University of Memphis.

The music of clarinetists Naftule Brandwein and Dave Tarras is iconic of American klezmer music. Their legacy has had an enduring impact on the development of the popular world music genre. Since the 1970s, klezmer music has become one of the most popular world music genres, at the same time influencing musical styles as diverse as indie rock, avant-garde jazz, and contemporary art music. Klezmer is the celebratory instrumental music that developed in the Jewish communities of eastern Europe over the course of centuries and was performed especially at weddings. Brought to North America in the immigration wave in the late nineteenth century, klezmer thrived and developed in the Yiddish-speaking communities of New York and other cities during the period 1880-1950. No two musicians represent New York klezmer more than clarinetists Naftule Brandwein (1884-1963)and Dave Tarras (1897-1989). Born in eastern Europe to respected klezmer families, both musicians had successful careers as performers and recording artists in New York. Their legacy has had an enduring impact and helped to spurthe revival of klezmer since the 1970s. Using their iconic recordings as a case study, New York Klezmer in the Early Twentieth Century looks at the inner workings of klezmer dance music, from its compositional aspects to the minutiae of style. Making use of historical and ethnographic sources, the book places the music within a larger social and cultural context stretching from eastern Europe of the nineteenth century to the United Statesof the present. JOEL E. RUBIN is Associate Professor of Music at the University of Virginia and an acclaimed performer of traditional klezmer music.

The Tropologion is considered the earliest known extant chant book from the early Christian world which was in use until the twelfth century. The study of this book is still in its infancy. It has generally been believed that the book has survived in Georgian translation under the name 'ladgari' but similar books have been discovered in Greek, Syriac and Armenian. All the copies clearly show that the spread and the use of the book were much greater than we had previously assumed and the Georgian ladgari is only one of its many versions. The study of these issues unquestionably confirms the earliest stage of the compilation of the book, in Jerusalem or its environs, and shows its uninterrupted development from Jerusalem to the Stoudios monastery, the most important monastery of Constantinople. Over time many new pieces and new authors were added to the Tropologion. It is almost certain that it was the Stoudios school of poet-composers that divided the content of the Tropologion and compiled separate collections of books, each one containing a major liturgical cycle. In the beginning all of the volumes kept the old title but in the tenth century the copies of the book were renamed, probably according to the liturgical repertory included, and by the thirteenth century the title 'Tropologion' is no longer found in the Greek sources as it became superfluous, and fell out of use.

This book is the most thorough and extensive history of English parish church music ever published, covering the period from the late middle ages to the present day. Through the ages English parish churches have resounded to all manner of music, ranging from the rich choral polyphony of Henry VIII's or Victoria's reigns to the bare unaccompanied psalm tunes of the seventeenth century. Temperley has found in this neglected field a wealth of fascinating music, as well as a host of intellectual problems to intrigue the scholar. A recurring theme of the book is the conflict between two incompatible goals for Protestant parish church music: artistic performance and popular expression. Professor Temperley suggests that the Elizabethan metrical psalm tunes were survivors of a mode of popular music that preceded the familiar corpus of ballad tunes. Passed on by oral transmission through several generations of unregulated singing, these once lively tunes changed gradually into very slow, quavering chants. This later style, which came to be called 'the old way of singing', is fully described and explained here for the first time. Temperley guides the reader through the complex social, theological and aesthetic movements that played their part in the formation of the late Victorian ideal of the surpliced choir in every chancel, and he makes a fresh assessment of that old bugbear, the Victorian hymn tune. His findings show that the radical liturgical experiments of the last few years have not dislodged the Victorian model for the music of the English parish church.