A Conductor's Guide to Choral-orchestral Works, Classical Period: Haydn and Mozart


Book Description

A Conductor's Guide to the Choral-Orchestral Works of the Classical Period, Part I: Haydn and Mozart is the fourth volume in Jonathan Green's innovative study of the vast body of choral-orchestral repertoire. A treasure-trove for conductors of choir and orchestras, in this volume all of the masses, oratorios, cantatas, litanies, vespers, and minor sacred works of Haydn and Mozart are carefully examined. For each work, the author has compiled the text source, duration, date of composition, date and place of premiere, location of manuscript materials, commercially available editions, a selected discography, a bibliography, and a brief history of the work. Most importantly, the performance concerns for the choir, orchestra, and soloists of each work are evaluated and described. This will prove to be an invaluable programming aid for conductors and a touchstone for anyone embarking on research into this music.




A Conductor's Guide to Choral/orchestral Repertoire


Book Description

"This guide consists of annotated listings of more than twelve hundred works for chorus and orchestra by 250 composers of the Western Hemisphere. The listings are intended for conductors of professional, community, church, and educational organizations, including those at the high school and collegiate levels, with the purpose of aiding the conductors in the selection of works for programming and in ascertaining important information about the works. ... Five appendices further aid the conductor by listing works in categories of choral scoring, orchestral scoring, duration, textual subject, and publisher contact information."--p.xi




Choral-Orchestral Repertoire


Book Description

Choral-Orchestral Repertoire: A Conductor’s Guide, Omnibus Edition offers an expansive compilation of choral-orchestral works from 1600 to the present. Synthesizing Jonathan D. Green’s earlier six volumes on this repertoire, this edition updates and adds to the over 750 oratorios, cantatas, choral symphonies, masses, secular works for large and small ensembles, and numerous settings of liturgical and biblical texts for a wide variety of vocal and instrumental combinations. Each entry includes a brief biographical sketch of the composer, approximate duration, text sources, performing forces, available editions, and locations of manuscript materials, as well as descriptive commentary, a discography, and a bibliography. Unique to this edition are practitioner’s evaluations of the performance issues presented in each score. These include the range, tessitura, and nature of each solo role and a determination of the difficulty of the choral and orchestral portions of each composition. There is also a description of the specific challenges, staffing, and rehearsal expectations related to the performance of each work. Choral-Orchestral Repertoire is an essential resource for conductors and students of conducting as they search for repertoire appropriate to their needs and the abilities of their ensembles.




The Complete Idiot's Guide to Conducting Music


Book Description

The complex art of conducting may look effortless to the casual onlooker, however, it requires a great deal of knowledge and skill. The success of a performance hinges on the director's ability to keep the group playing together and interpreting the music as the composer intended. The Complete Idiot's Guide® to Conducting Music shows student and novice conductors how to lead bands, orchestras, choirs, and other ensembles effectively through sight-reading, rehearsals, and performances.




The Choral-Orchestral Works of Ralph Vaughan Williams


Book Description

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).




A Conductor's Guide to Choral-Orchestral Works


Book Description

Surveys large choral-orchestral works written between 1900 and 1972 that contain some English text. Green examines eighty-nine works by forty-nine composers, from Elgar's Dream of Gerontius to Bernstein's Mass.




A Practical Guide to Choral Conducting


Book Description

Rooted in the experience of a professional choral conductor, this book provides a guide to practical issues facing conductors of choral ensembles at all levels, from youth choruses to university ensembles, church and community choirs, and professional vocal groups. Paired with the discussion of practical challenges is a discussion of over fifty key works from the choral literature, with performance suggestions to aid the choral conductor in directing each piece. Dealing with often-overlooked yet vital considerations such as how to work with composers, recording, concert halls, and choral tours, A Practical Guide to Choral Conducting offers a valuable resource for both emerging choral conductors and students of choral conducting at the undergraduate and graduate levels.




A Conductor's Guide to Choral-orchestral Works, Twentieth Century, Part II


Book Description

This innovative survey of large choral-orchestral works is a continuation of the author's previous study of twentieth century works with English texts. Green examines nearly one hundred works, from Rachmaninov's Vesna to Penderecki's Song of Songs. For each work, he provides a biography of the composer, complete instrumentation, text sources, editions, availability of performing materials, performance issues, discography, and bibliography of the composer and the work. Based upon direct score study, each work has been evaluated in terms of potential performance problems, rehearsal issues, and level of difficulty for both the choir and orchestra. When present, solo roles are described. The composers represented in this work include Bela Bartok, Leonard Bernstein, Ernest Bloch, Maurice Duruf , Hans Werner Henze, Paul Hindemith, Arthur Honegger, Leos Janacek, Gy rgy Ligeti, Gustav Mahler, Carl Orff, Krzysztof Penderecki, Francis Poulenc, Igor Stravinsky, Anton Webern, and Kurt Weill. Written as a field guide for conductors and others involved in programming concerts for choir and orchestra, this text will prove a useful source of new repertoire ideas and an invaluable aid to rehearsal preparation.




Wisdom, Wit, and Will


Book Description

Includes biographies of selected American women choral conductors.




Historical Dictionary of Choral Music


Book Description

The human voice an incredibly beautiful and expressive instrument, and when multiple voices are unified in tone and purpose a powerful statement is realized. No wonder people have always wanted to sing in a communal context-a desire apparently stemming from a deeply rooted human instinct. Consequently, choral performance has often been related historically to human rituals and ceremonies, especially rites of a religious nature. This Historical Dictionary of Choral Music examines choral music and practice in the Western world from the Medieval era to the 21st century, focusing mostly on familiar figures like Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, and Britten. But its scope is considerably broader, and it includes all sorts of music-religious, secular, and popular-from sources throughout the world. It contains a chronology, an introduction, a bibliography, and more than 1,000 cross-referenced dictionary entries on important composers, genres, conductors, institutions, styles, and technical terms of choral music.