This is a selection of the best-loved carols and hymns for Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, and Easter: 74 of the most popular titles from Carols for Choirs 1, 2 and 3, plus 26 titles new to the series. There are carols suitable for both sacred and secular occasions, and both accompanied and unaccompanied material. The Order of Service for a Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols is included.

This study represents a thorough investigation of a polyphonic vocal village tradition in Bistritsa, Bulgaria. Outsiders describe the narrow intervals of these songs as being "maximally rough", while the singers themselves experience their performance as smooth, beautiful and pleasant. Almost identical polyphonic traditions can be found in places sometimes thousands of kilometers apart. This inquiry is carried out within a very broad and comparative context, whereby historical sources, the origin of different constituents and etymologies as well as electronic sound analysis are taken into account. The results are stunning and ever more relevant - and not just for ethnomusicologists: The babi or grannies of Bistritsa and their songs have been inscribed on UNESCO's List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Mankind in 2008.

Lawrence Bennett provides a comprehensive study of the rich repertoire of accompanied vocal chamber music that entertained the imperial family in Vienna and their guests throughout the 17th and early 18th centuries. The cantata became a form of elite entertainment composed to amuse listeners during banquets or pay homage to members of the royal family during special occasions. Concentrating on Baroque cantatas composed in the Habsburg court, Bennett draws extensively on primary source material to explore the stylistic changes that occurred within the genre in the generations before Haydn and Mozart.The cantata became a form of elite entertainment composed to amuse listeners during banquets or pay homage to members of the royal family during special occasions. Concentrating on Baroque cantatas composed in the Habsburg court, Bennett draws extensively on primary source material to explore the stylistic changes that occurred within the genre in the generations before Haydn and Mozart.

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 This setting of Psalm 139 by Chilcott is warm and mesmerizing. The chant-like texture and shifting tonalities impart the sensation of being entranced in prayer. The words offer respite, as one is safe in the omnipresence of God. Tranquil yet powerful, this work captures a sense of the total stillness after a storm. The sustained chords in the organ swell and fall, binding and supporting the choir's phrases while adding to the magical atmosphere of the anthem.

for SATB chorus and orchestra This arrangement for choir and orchestra of a traditional American spiritual conjures a deep fervency, belying its simple appearance. The opening instruction is 'With hushed awe', and that encapsulates perfectly the gentle radiance of the tender lyrics and the music's highly singable lines.

Performance is a forum for social action, embodied interaction and shared authority. Recently, as the various acts and agencies surrounding a performance have become the target of scholarly interest, the complex split between theory and practice has been challenged, as has the idea of a singular, disembodied authorial ownership of the socio-material meanings surrounding performance. The Embodiment of Authority approaches performance, issues of authority and negotiated knowledge production through multi-material research data and interdisciplinary methods. The book discusses the relationship between authorial questions and performances via the following topics: shared authorities, ontologies of art work, diverse roles of rehearsals in the performance process, and embodied knowledge.

for SATB unaccompanied This secular work by John Rutter is set to the text of Shakespeare's famous Sonnet No. 18. Throughout the work, Rutter skilfully weaves the figurative language of the sonnet within the lyrical melodic lines of the music. Shakespeare's expressive text is passed between the voices, with the warm, verdant harmonies enveloping the sonnet's use of imagery and the work's central metaphor of comparing love to a summer's day.

The Choral-Orchestral Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams: Autographs, Context, Discourse combines contextual knowledge, a musical commentary, an inventory of the holograph manuscripts, and a critical assessment of the opus to create substantial and meticulous examinations of Ralph Vaughan Williams's choral-orchestral works. The contents include an equitable choice of pieces from the various stages in the life of the composer and an analysis of pieces from the various stages of Williams's life. The earliest are taken from the pre-World War I years, when Vaughan Williams was constructing his identity as an academic and musician-Vexilla Regis (1894), Mass (1899), and A Sea Symphony (1910). The middle group are chosen from the interwar period-Sancta Civitas (1925), Benedicite (1929), Magnificat (1932), Five Tudor Portraits (1935), Dona nobis pacem (1936)-written after Vaughan Williams had found his mature voice. The last cluster-Thanksgiving for Victory (1944), Fantasia (Quasi Variazione) on the 'Old 104' Psalm Tune (1949), Sons of Light (1950), Hodie (1954), The Bridal Day/Epithalamion (1938/1957)-typify the works finished or revisited during the final years of the composer's life, near the end of the Second World War and immediately before or after his second marriage (1953).

for SA and piano This is a beautiful setting of an anonymous medieval text that follows a broken-hearted lover into the woods. Fluctuating between major and minor keys, Chilcott's melody is full of nostalgia and grows intensely towards the middle of the piece. The parts are supported by a warm and flowing piano accompaniment. 'All for Love of One' was originally published in the collection Five Songs for Upper Voices.

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 soprano solo, opt. alto solo, SATB double choir and piano or orchestra This is a chorus from a one-act opera, which tells a melodramatic story of love, betrayal, and death. This setting is stirring and colorful. Orchestral materials are available on rental.

for SATB choir and organ This appealing motet for SATB choir and organ accompaniment was written in aid of Macmillan Cancer Support. Although the prevailing mood of the gently flowing music is lyrical, with an atmosphere of loving peacefulness, William Blake's Lullaby is not without its darker undertones, and they too are explored, with one or two bold harmonic touches.

Cantique de Jean Racine was written in 1865 during Faure's final year at the Ecole Niedermeyer, winning him the first prize for composition, and this elegant work now holds a cherished place in the choral repertory for both sacred and secular occasions. Presented with an English singing translation in addition to the original French, John Rutter's edition includes an accompaniment for organ or piano, and the work may also be performed with the transcription for harp and strings (available separately), compatible with the instrumentation for the OUP edition of the Faure Requiem in its 1893 version. Complete orchestral and vocal material is available on hire/rental and on sale. In addition, an arrangement for upper voices (SSAA) with Faure's original keyboard accompaniment is available on sale.

Described as the "life and soul of British contemporary music", Jane Manning is an internationally celebrated English concert and opera soprano. In this new follow-up to her highly regarded New Vocal Repertory, Volumes I and II, she provides a seasoned expert's guidance and insight into the vocal genre she calls home. Vocal Repertoire for the Twenty-First Century spans the late middle-20th century through the second decade of the 21st. Manning's comprehensive selection of contemporary art songs ranges from the avant-garde to the more easily accessible, including substantial song cycles, shorter encore pieces, and songs suitable for auditions and competitions. The two-volume guide presents expertly-informed selections tailored to particular voice types. Each of the 160 selections is accompanied by a highly detailed performance guide, music examples, levels of difficulty, and a brief encapsulation of vocal characteristics or challenges contained in the piece. A supplemental companion website provides composer biographies and an up-to-date list of recommended recordings. With a focus on younger composers in addition to prominent figures, Manning encourages singers to refresh and expand their recital repertoire into less familiar territory, and discover the rewards therein. Volume 1 features works written before 2000, including pieces from such renowned composers as John Cage ("The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs", "A Flower"), Andre Previn ("Five Songs"), and Igor Stravinsky ("The Owl and the Pussycat").

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

Late medieval motet texts are brimming with chimeras, centaurs and other strange creatures. In The Monstrous New Art, Anna Zayaruznaya explores the musical ramifications of this menagerie in the works of composers Guillaume de Machaut, Philippe de Vitry, and their contemporaries. Aligning the larger forms of motets with the broad sacred and secular themes of their texts, Zayaruznaya shows how monstrous or hybrid exempla are musically sculpted by rhythmic and textural means. These divisive musical procedures point to the contradictory aspects not only of explicitly monstrous bodies, but of such apparently unified entities as the body politic, the courtly lady, and the Holy Trinity. Zayaruznaya casts a new light on medieval modes of musical representation, with profound implications for broader disciplinary narratives about the history of text-music relations, the emergence of musical unity, and the ontology of the musical work.

This rhythmic and spirited setting of the familiar hymn starts off with men's voices split into three- to six-part harmony in homophony. The women join and the texture thickens and varies producing a broad and spacious sound, decorated with syncopation and dramatic pauses. This compelling arrangement is certain to gain standing ovations and is a 'must have' for larger church, concert, and university choirs.

for SATB unaccompanied Let all mortal flesh keep silence is a reflective, homophonic setting of text from the fourth-century Orthodox Liturgy of St James. Sheehan's setting, an original rather than the customary pairing with the hymn tune 'Picardy', is steeped in the Orthodox tradition, and has pure harmonies and a beautiful stillness.

The B-minor Mass has always represented a fascinating challenge to musical scholarship. Composed over the course of Johann Sebastian Bach's life, it is considered by many to be the composer's greatest and most complex work. The fourteen essays assembled in this volume originate from the International Symposium 'Understanding Bach's B-minor mass' at which scholars from eighteen countries gathered to debate the latest topics in the field. In revised and updated form, they comprise a thorough and systematic study of Bach's Opus Ultimum, including a wide range of discussions relating to the Mass's historical background and contexts, structure and proportion, sources and editions, and the reception of the work in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In the light of important new developments in the study of the piece, this collection demonstrates the innovation and rigour for which Bach scholarship has become known.

As the landscape of choral education changes - disrupted by Glee, YouTube, and increasingly cheap audio production software - teachers of choral conducting need current research in the field that charts scholarly paths through contemporary debates and sets an agenda for new critical thought and practice. Where, in the digitizing world, is the field of choral pedagogy moving? Editor Frank Abrahams and Paul D. Head, both experienced choral conductors and teachers, offer here a comprehensive handbook of newly-commissioned chapters that provide key scholarly-critical perspectives on teaching and learning in the field of choral music, written by academic scholars and researchers in tandem with active choral conductors. As chapters in this book demonstrate, choral pedagogy encompasses everything from conductors' gestures to the administrative management of the choir. The contributors to The Oxford Handbook of Choral Pedagogy address the full range of issues in contemporary choral pedagogy, from repertoire to voice science to the social and political aspects of choral singing. They also cover the construction of a choral singer's personal identity, the gendering of choral ensembles, social justice in choral education, and the role of the choral art in society more generally. Included scholarship focuses on both the United States and international perspectives in five sections that address traditional paradigms of the field and challenges to them; critical case studies on teaching and conducting specific populations (such as international, school, or barbershop choirs); the pedagogical functions of repertoire; teaching as a way to construct identity; and new scholarly methodologies in pedagogy and the voice.

for SATB (with alto solo) and organ Written for the charity Help Musicians for the festival of St Cecilia and premiered by the combined choirs of Westminster Abbey, Westminster Cathedral, and St Paul's Cathedral, this anthem presents an imaginative setting of Francis Pott's well-known hymn 'Angel voices ever ringing' in triple metre. Characterful and contrasting organ writing underpins the melodically and rhythmically interesting vocal lines, and an Alto solo in the fourth verse provides textural contrast.

Providing a detailed analysis of Bach's Passions, this 2010 book represents an important contribution to the debate about the culture of 'classical music', its origins, priorities and survival. The angles from which each chapter proceeds differ from those of a traditional music guide, by examining the Passions in the light of the mindsets of modernity, and their interplay with earlier models of thought and belief. While the historical details of Bach's composition, performance and theological context remain crucial, the foremost concern of this study is to relate these works to a historical context that may, in some threads at least, still be relevant today. The central claim of the book is that the interplay of traditional imperatives and those of early modernity renders Bach's Passions particularly fascinating as artefacts that both reflect and constitute some of the priorities and conditions of the western world.

A survey of secular, sacred, folk-influenced, and jazz-influenced choral music from: Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Czech Republic, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, England, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nigeria, Norway, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Romania, Russia, Scotland, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, United States, Uruguay, Venezuela, Wales, Yugoslavia.

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.