The Glagolitic Mass, written between 1926 and 1927, is not only one of Janacek's most important works: it is also a masterpiece of the twentieth-century choral repertoire. In this fascinating account of the work and its history, Paul Wingfield brings together material from early articles and reviews, letters and manuscripts which form a comprehensive account of the work's genesis and performance history. The author also provides a thorough revision of the Old Church Slavonic text along with English translation, and reconstructs Janacek's 'ideal' version of the work - far more exciting than the less adventurous rearrangement currently performed. Chapters on the music itself offer a full synopsis of the Glagolitic Mass, an in-depth discussion of its musical organisation and a selection of key interpretations of the piece by Janacek and others.

The Glagolitic Mass, written between 1926 and 1927, is not only one of Janacek's most important works: it is also a masterpiece of the twentieth-century choral repertoire. In this fascinating account of the work and its history, Paul Wingfield brings together material from early articles and reviews, letters and manuscripts which form a comprehensive account of the work's genesis and performance history. The author also provides a thorough revision of the Old Church Slavonic text along with English translation, and reconstructs Janacek's 'ideal' version of the work - far more exciting than the less adventurous rearrangement currently performed. Chapters on the music itself offer a full synopsis of the Glagolitic Mass, an in-depth discussion of its musical organisation and a selection of key interpretations of the piece by Janacek and others.

for SATB, piano, and optional saxophone, bass, and drum kit Ophelia, Caliban, and Miranda puts a jazzy twist on three Shakespearean characters. With newly written texts by Charles Bennett, each of the three movements focuses in on Ophelia from Hamlet and Caliban and Miranda from The Tempest. In the funky opener, 'River Bride', the upper voices take the part of Ophelia, while the tenors and basses play a lover figure. Caliban's song, 'Ariel taught me how to play', is a reflective ballad in which the slave tells Miranda, who has escaped his advances, about the spirit helper Ariel teaching him to play the saxophone. The final movement, 'All good things come to an end', is a sassy yet tender number, where Miranda bids farewell to her beloved husband Ferdinand, declaring: 'I've gone back to the island to remember who I am'. The saxophone, bass, piano, and drum kit parts may be played as written or serve as a guide.

for SATB and piano or harp In his setting of the German hymn Wir pflugen und wir streuen, with a text translated by Jane Campbell, Rutter keeps the voices largely in rhythmic unison, skilfully bringing variety through variations to the timbre and dynamics from verse to verse. The text's focus on praise and thankfulness for a successful harvest makes it especially suitable for Thanksgiving and Harvest services, though it is equally effective as a general song of praise for other religious ceremonies. The piece is part of a wider collection of hymn arrangements, which have been recorded by the Cambridge Singers, directed by John Rutter, on the Collegium CD Sing, ye heavens (COLCD 126).

for SATB unaccompanied Well suited to beginners, This is the House of God is a piece of elegant simplicity that remains in rhythmic unison throughout, with focus placed on the dynamic range. Its text, written by the composer, emphasizes the communal significance of religious spaces, making the piece an ideal choice for a reflective moment in any worship service.

for SA and piano or orchestra With a simple, appealing melody and a flowing accompaniment, The Colours of Christmas evokes a touching sense of longing for the joys of the festive season. An accompaniment for orchestra is available on hire/rental.

Discussion of original performance conventions of Bach's sacred works - cantatas, Passions, masses - by practising musician and director of Taverner choir. What type of choir did Bach have in mind as he created his cantatas, Passions and Masses? How many singers were at his disposal in Leipzig, and in what ways did he deploy them in his own music? Seeking to understand the verymedium of Bach's incomparable choral output, Andrew Parrott investigates a wide range of sources: Bach's own writings, and the scores and parts he used in performance, but also a variety of theoretical, pictorial and archival documents, together with the musical testimony of the composer's forerunners and contemporaries. Many of the findings shed a surprising, even disturbing, light on conventions we have long taken for granted. A whole world away from, say, the typical oratorio choir of Handel's London with which we are reasonably familiar, the essential Bach choir was in fact an expert vocal quartet (or quintet), whose members were also responsible for all solos and duets. (In a mere handful of Bach's works, this solo team was selectively supported by a second rank of singers - also one per part - whose contribution was all but optional). Parrott shows that this use of aone-per-part choir was mainstream practice in the Lutheran Germany of Bach's time: Bach chose to use single voices not because a larger group was unavailable, but because they were the natural vehicle of elaborate concerted music. As one of several valuable appendices, this book includes the text of Joshua Rifkin's explosive 1981 lecture, never before published, which first set out this line of thinking and launched a controversy that is long overduefor resolution. ANDREW PARROTT has made a close study of historical performing practices in the music of six centuries, and for over twenty-five years he has been putting research into practice with his own professional ensembles, the Taverner Consort, Taverner Players and Taverner Choir.

These four splendid anthems were composed for the coronation of George II in October 1727 and have since retained a position at the heart of the English choral tradition. The popular anthem Zadok the priest has been performed at all subsequent coronations, and Handel's other contributions to the royal occasion - Let thy hand be strengthened, The King shall rejoice, and My heart is inditing - have the same majestic grandeur, with affecting contrasts between different sections of the sacred texts. The editor, Clifford Bartlett, has corrected various inconsistencies in Handel's score, and complete details of sources and editorial method, additional performance notes, and a critical commentary can be viewed in the companion full score available on hire.

World Music Pedagogy, Volume V: Choral Music Education explores specific applications of the World Music Pedagogy process to choral music education in elementary, middle, and high school contexts, as well as within community settings. The text provides clear and accessible information to help choral music educators select, rehearse, and perform a diverse global repertoire. It also guides directors in creating a rich cultural context for learners, emphasizing listening, moving, and playing activities as meaningful music-making experiences. Commentary on quality, commercially available world music repertoire bridges the gap between the philosophy of World Music Pedagogy and the realities of the performance-based choral classroom. All chapters open with a series of vignettes that illuminate the variety of possibilities within multiple K-12 contexts, providing the reader with a sense of how the ideas presented might look "on the ground." Ready-to-integrate activities serve as concrete and pedagogically sound examples to guide directors as they develop their own instructional materials according to the needs of their choir. Content features choral and vocal music-making traditions from South and West Africa; Latin America; Southeast, East, and South Asia; the Pacific Islands; Australia; New Zealand; Scandinavia; and the Baltics.

Contains two versions of the vocal parts - for SATB and piano or orchestra, or SS or SA and piano or orchestra.

Andrew Gant's compelling account traces English church music from Anglo-Saxon origins to the present. It is a history of the music and of the people who made, sang and listened to it. It shows the role church music has played in ordinary lives and how it reflects those lives back to us. The author considers why church music remains so popular and frequently tops the classical charts and why the BBC's Choral Evensong remains the longest-running radio series ever. He shows how England's church music follows the contours of its history and is the soundtrack of its changing politics and culture, from the mysteries of the Mass to the elegant decorum of the Restoration anthem, from stern Puritanism to Victorian bombast, and thence to the fractured worlds of the twentieth century as heard in the music of Vaughan Williams and Britten. This is a book for everyone interested in the history of English music, culture and society.

for SATB and piano or small ensemble This celebratory work sees Bob Chilcott collaborate with poet Charles Bennett to explore all that we can learn from the natural world. The first movement, 'Follow the music', leads us on a journey through the woods that is artfully reflected in the music through resonant repeated notes in the piano that take us on our own musical trail. The second movement, 'A Gift so in Tune', is more reflective, with a real potential for storytelling as we're reminded to listen to and learn from the prompts that nature gives us. Finally, the titular movement brings us a mood of bright positivity, with energetic semiquavers in the piano underpinning the singers' powerful message of how, whatever the season, we should follow the birds' example and spread our wings and find our voices. The work may be accompanied by piano, playing from the vocal score, or a small ensemble of flute, oboe, clarinet in A, horn in F, timpani, and organ, using the materials available separately.

What should we consider when thinking about the relationship between an onstage performance and the story the performance tells? A Poetics of Handel's Operas explores this question by analyzing the narratives of Handel's operas in relation to the rich representational fabric of performance used to convey them. Nathan Link notes that in most storytelling genres, the audience can naturally discern between a story and the way that story is represented: with film, for example, the viewer would recognize that a character hears neither her own voiceover nor the ambient music that accompanies it, whereas in discussions of opera, some audiences may be distracted by the seemingly artificial nature of such conventions as characters singing their dialogue. Link proposes that when engaging with opera, distinguishing between the performance we see and hear on the stage and the story represented offers a meaningful approach to engaging with and interpreting the work. Handel's operas are today the most-performed works in the Baroque opera seria tradition. This genre, with its intricate dramaturgy and esoteric conventions, stands to gain much from an investigation into the relationships between the onstage performance and the story to which that performance directs us. In his analysis, Link offers theoretical studies on opera and narratological theories of literature, drama, and film, providing rich engagement with Handel's work and what it conveys about the relationship between text, story, and performance.

for SATB and piano or orchestra Jonathan Wikeley's choral arrangement of Vaughan Williams's Four Last Songs offers a new way to engage with these beautiful late works. The texts are by Ursula Vaughan Williams, and the set begins and ends with two poems that were inspired by Greek mythology. The opening song, 'Procris', and the closing song, 'Menelaus', have flowing piano accompaniments that remain unchanged from the original solo voice versions. The two songs in the middle, 'Tired' and 'Hands, Eyes, and Heart', are unaccompanied in this arrangement, with a double-choir texture that incorporates the original chordal piano line in a way that is consistent with Vaughan Williams's own double-choir writing. The songs are available in their original form, for solo voice and piano accompaniment, in the first volume of Collected Songs by Vaughan Williams.

The Oxford Book of Choral Music by Black Composers is a landmark collection of non-idiomatic compositions from the sixteenth century to the present day, providing a comprehensive introduction to an area of choral music that has been historically under-represented. This unique anthology seeks both to improve representation in the historical canon and to showcase the music of some of the best names in choral music today.

for SATB accompanied (piano or organ) and unaccompanied The Oxford Book of Choral Music by Black Composers is a landmark collection of non-idiomatic compositions from the sixteenth century to the present day, providing a comprehensive introduction to an area of choral music that has been historically under-represented. This unique anthology seeks both to improve representation in the historical canon and to showcase the music of some of the best names in choral music today.

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.

for SATB and orchestra Setting a well-loved medieval text, this effective piece paints the story of Jesus through lyrical melodies and beautiful harmonic surprises. The vocal lines offer both powerful intensity and skilful dialogue, and are supported by a pulsing orchestral accompaniment.

The Confident Choir is an exploration of conditions affecting the confidence levels in singers of all levels to create an accessible synthesis of the psychological models and offer practical confidence-building strategies for conductors, teachers, community musicians, and workshop leaders. Michael Bonshor combines his experience as a singing teacher and choral director with a series of in-depth interviews that give an intimate depiction of the challenges faced by the contemporary choral singer. These insights provide the basis for a range of suggested techniques to bolster confidence and reduce anxiety in the group-singing context. This book is primarily designed as a guide for leaders of amateur group singing activities and is relevant to choirs of all sizes and genres. The content will appeal to singers, teachers, and choir leaders; students and scholars in the fields of choral research, community music, music psychology, and adult education; and educators training the musical leaders of the future.

Contents: 1. Magnificat Anima Mea (Coro) 2. Et Exultavit (Aria) 3. Quia Respexit (Aria) 4. Omnes Generationes (Coro) 5. Quia Fecit Mihi Magna (Aria) 6. Et Misericordia (Duetto) 7. Fecit Potentiam (Coro) 8. Deposuit (Aria) 9. Esurientes (Aria) 10. Suscepit Israel (Terzetto) 11. Sicut Locutus (Coro) 12. Gloria Patri (Coro) Unabridged digitally enhanced reprint of the vocal score prepared by musicologist Karl Straube and published by C.F. Peters, Leipzig in the late 19th century. Bach composed the initial version in E flat in 1723 for the Christmas Vespers in Leipzig which contained several Christmas texts. Over the years he removed the Christmas-specific texts to make it suitable for year-round performance, transposing it into D major to provide better sonority for the trumpets. The work is divided into twelve parts which can be grouped into three movements, each beginning with an aria and completed by the choir. This large-format, easy-to-read vocal score, a welcome addition to the libraries of choruses and orchestras everywhere, is completely compatible with the widely available orchestra material reprinted by E. F. Kalmus.

SATB and piano, with optional bass and drum kit This dynamic collection presents four jazzy settings of favourite madrigals by Thomas Morley, John Bennet, and Orlando Gibbons. The first, 'Sing we and Chant it', is a relaxed jazz waltz with a compelling melody, and singers will especially revel in the rich harmonies of the expressive 'Weep, O mine eyes' setting that follows. 'Learned Poets' has a bossa nova feel with a strong rhythmic groove and characterful syncopations, and the urgent rolling tempo of movement four captures the text's calamity and titular call of 'Fire, fire!', also expressed by a walking bassline that continually drives towards the work's emphatic conclusion. The stylistic piano part may be played as written or serve as a guide, and a bass and drum kit part is available separately for trio accompaniment.

for SSA and piano In this passionate four-movement work, composer Bob Chilcott and lyricist Delphine Chalmers explore themes of inclusivity, identity, and unity. The middle movements, 'Harmony' and 'Rhythm', have strong grooves and rhythmic drive, while the outer movements, 'Unison' and 'Resolution', are steadfast and uplifting. Songs my Heart has Taught Me brings singers and audience together in a celebration of all that unites us. This work was originally published in a version for mixed voices, commissioned by the American Choral Directors Association as the 2021 Raymond W. Brock Memorial Commission.

SATB and piano, with optional bass and drum kit This dynamic collection presents four jazzy settings of favourite madrigals by Thomas Morley, John Bennet, and Orlando Gibbons. The first, 'Sing we and chant it', is a relaxed jazz waltz with a compelling melody, and singers will especially revel in the rich harmonies of the expressive 'Weep, O mine eyes' setting that follows. 'Learned Poets' has a bossa nova feel with a strong rhythmic groove and characterful syncopations. The urgent rolling tempo of the fourth movement captures the text's intensity and titular call of 'Fire, fire!', also expressed by a walking bassline that continually drives towards the work's emphatic conclusion. The stylistic piano part may be played as written or serve as a guide, and a bass and drum kit part is available separately for trio accompaniment.

for soloists and SATB unaccompanied Inspired by Rachmaninoff's All-Night Vigil, Vespers is a 12-movement English-language work in the Eastern Orthodox tradition. Suited to concert and liturgical settings, it draws from a variety of Orthodox chant traditions, with Sheehan's use of asymmetric metres enhancing the textual expression of the chosen prayers, psalms, and hymns. The work is infused with a deep religious sentiment, and the artful use of chiasmus places the ancient hymn 'Phos Hilaron' ('O gladsome Light') at its centre, defining its supreme message of light and hope. Virtuosic solos are underpinned by rich choral textures or offset by characterful interjections, with movements for chorus alone equal in impact. In a work that considers the past, present, and future of Orthodox liturgical music in America, Sheehan creates a distinctly American idiom rooted in the centuries-old Eastern Orthodox musical tradition, displaying a unique voice that is cohesively ancient and modern.