Musical works for chorus are among the great masterpieces of 20th-century art. This guide, the first truly comprehensive volume on the choral music of the last century, covers the spectacular range of music for vocal ensembles, from Saint-Saens to Tan Dun. The book will be essential to every choral conductor and a valuable resource for choir members, choral societies and choruses.
From the author of the critically acclaimed "Choral Music in the Twentieth Century" comes an indispensable resource for choral conductors, choral singers, and other music lovers, and an essential text for educators and their students. Strimple covers repertory by Beethoven, Brahms, Mendelssohn, and lesser figures.
The vocal repertoire of the twentieth century--including works by Schoenberg, Boulez, Berio, Larsen, and Vercoe--presents exciting opportunities for singers to stretch their talents and demonstrate their vocal flexibility. Contemporary composers can be very demanding of vocalists, requiring them to recite, trill, and whisper, or to read non-traditional scores. For singers just beginning to explore the novelties of the contemporary repertoire, Exploring Twentieth-Century Vocal Music is an ideal guide. Drawing on over thirty years of experience teaching and performing the twentieth century repertoire, Sharon Mabry has written a cogent and insightful book for singers and voice teachers who are just discovering the innovative music of the twentieth century. The book familiarizes readers with the new and unusual notation systems employed by some contemporary composers. It suggests rehearsal techniques and vocal exercises that help singers prepare to tackle the repertoire. And the book offers a list of the most important and interesting works to emerge in the twentieth century, along with suggested recital programs that will introduce audiences as well as singers to this under-explored body of music.
In this brief text, Homer Ulrich offers students a history of choral music that is as rich and fascinating as the genre itself. Emphasizing those works that represent historical or stylistic turning points, A SURVEY OF CHORAL MUSIC begins several centuries before the invention of the genre and takes students all the way into the twentieth century. Ulrich's descriptive discussions mix history and analysis with explication of musical structures, text sources and treatments, and kinds of texture. The text offers a useful glossary, bibliography, and list of music sources--as well as appendices that provide several principal types of sacred texts (including Requiem Mass, Te Deum, and Magnificat) for quick reference.
Traces the currents that have shaped the development of music in the twentieth century and discusses the contributions of such composers as Mahler, Debussy, Stockhausen, Vaughan Williams, Bartok, and Stravinsky
A History of Western Choral Music explores the various genres, key composers, and influential works essential to the development of the western choral tradition. Volume II examines the major genres common to the Classical and Romantic eras and offers a thorough exploration of the array of styles and approaches developed over the course of the twentieth century, from Impressionism to the Avant-Garde.
Under the dictatorships of the twentieth century, music never ceased to sound. Even when they did not impose aesthetic standards, these regimes tended to favour certain kinds of art music such as occasional works for commemorations or celebrations, symphonic poems, cantatas and choral settings. In the same way, composers who were more or less ideologically close to the regime wrote pieces of music on their own initiative, which amounted to a support of the political order. This book presents ten studies focusing on music inspired and promoted by regimes such as Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, France under Vichy, the USSR and its satellites, Franco's Spain, Salazar's Portugal, Maoist China, and Latin-American dictatorships. By discussing the musical works themselves, whether they were conceived as ways to provide "music for the people", to personally honour the dictator, or to participate in State commemorations of glorious historical events, the book examines the relationship between the composers and the State. This important volume, therefore, addresses theoretical issues long neglected by both musicologists and historians: What is the relationship between art music and propaganda? How did composers participate in musical life under the control of an authoritarian State? What was specifically political in the works produced in these contexts? How did audiences react to them? Can we speak confidently about "State music"? In this way, Composing for the State: Music in Twentieth Century Dictatorships is an essential contribution to our understanding of musical cultures of the twentieth century, as well as the symbolic policies of dictatorial regimes.
Ton de Leeuw was a truly groundbreaking composer. As evidenced by his pioneering study of compositional methods that melded Eastern traditional music with Western musical theory, he had a profound understanding of the complex and often divisive history of twentieth-century music. Now his renowned chronicle Music of the Twentieth Century is offered here in a newly revised English-language edition. Music of the Twentieth Century goes beyond a historical survey with its lucid and impassioned discussion of the elements, structures, compositional principles, and terminologies of twentieth-century music. De Leeuw draws on his experience as a composer, teacher, and music scholar of non-European music traditions, including Indian, Indonesian, and Japanese music, to examine how musical innovations that developed during the twentieth century transformed musical theory, composition, and scholarly thought around the globe.
