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My husband, Bill, and I have been collecting selected choral scores and recordings for many years. At first, we collected major works so that we would have them as reference materials. Gradually, we began to explore unknown repertoire—someone would rave about an exciting composer, work, or choral group, or we would nose around a record store and come across a recording that looked interesting.
These days, with fewer record and sheet music stores around, we often search for music over the Internet or through various discount catalogs. Sometimes we purchase recordings sight unseen, and though we don't always strike gold, we have made some wonderful discoveries.
Ancient Echoes: Music from the Time of Jesus and Jerusalem's Second Temple - San Antonio Vocal Arts Ensemble (SAVAE)
Singers often wonder how music of the ancients might sound. The San Antonio Vocal Arts Ensemble (SAVAE), directed by Christopher Moroney, specializes in the re-creation of historic music and has created several excellent recordings of exciting works from Latin America. Ancient Echoes includes settings of Jesus's original prayers sung in Aramaic, music from Jerusalem's Second Temple, and Essene chant from the Dead Sea Scrolls. SAVAE members spent several years doing research for Ancient Echoes, working with language and music experts to reconstruct possible dialects of ancient Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. They also learned to play modern reproductions of ancient instruments, as well as contemporary instruments from the Middle East, using the Thesaurus of Hebrew Oriental Melodies by Abraham Zvi Idelsohn as a source.
Sample Selection: "Bircath Cohenin-Reprise" (The Priestly Blessing)
The text is taken from the Bible (Numbers 24-26) and is the familiar text of "May the Lord bless you and keep (protect) you." This brief selection includes instruments and chorus, and has a wonderful chant-like quality.
Score: I was unable to locate the score for this particular selection. Members of SAVAE and/or World Library Publications may be able to assist. The liner notes comment that French composer, organist, and music theoretician Suzanne Haik-Vantoura was able to study and decipher the musical signs that appear above and below the texts in the Hebrew Bible. She describes her work in the book The Music of the Bible Revealed: The Deciphering of a Millenary Notation (BIBAL Press, Berkeley, California, 1991).
Besides SAVAE, several groups have done reconstructions of ancient music, such as the recording Musique de la Grece Antique by Gregorio Pagiagua and the Atrium Musicae de Madrid, originally published by Harmonia Mundi on phonograph record in 1978 and now available as a CD.
Buy: Available at Amazon.
Ave Verum - Choeur de Chambre Les Elements
This wonderful recording of sacred music by 19th- and 20th-century French composers Gabriel Faure, Jehan Alain, Maurice Duruflé, Jean-Guy Ropartz, and Francis Poulenc demonstrates the beautiful lyricism so characteristic of 19th- and 20th-century French music. The Choeur de Chambre Les Elements, formed in 1985, is a professional ensemble based in Toulouse, whose primary mission is the performance of 20th-century music and works of the present day, including works by Britten, Desenclos, Duruflé, Hersant, Martin, Messiaen, Pecou, and Stravinsky. This recording is an example of a take-your-chances purchase from a discount catalog.
Sample Selections: Messe de Requiem for four mixed voices and organ; Jehan Alain, composer
Alain Requiem: "Kyrie"
Alain Requiem: "Sanctus"
Alain Requiem: "Agnus Dei"
French composer and organist Jehan Alain (1911-1940) studied organ with Marcel Dupré and composition with Paul Dukas and Jean Roger-Ducasse. He is well known as a composer of organ and piano works, as well as choral music. He was killed in action in World War II.
Alain sets just three movements of the Requiem in this gentle and flowing work: "Kyrie," "Sanctus," and "Agnus Dei." The Requiem music is based on Gregorian plainsong themes, and has the same calm lyricism as choral works by Fauré and Duruflé.
Score: Alain, Jehan. Messe de Requiem (für gemischten Chor & Orgel). Vienna: Doblinger, 1978.
Buy: Available from ArkivMusic.
Divine Grandeur - New York Concert Singers
This excellent recording features exciting choral music by a number of contemporary American composers including Simon Sargon, Robert Beaser, Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, Aaron Jay Kernis, Stephen Paulus, Judith Shatin, and John Schlenck. Judith Clurman founded the New York Concert Singers in 1988. They received the first Chorus America/ASCAP Award for Adventuresome Programming in Contemporary Music in 1992.
Sample Selection: "Thanksgiving Song"; Ellen Taaffe Zwilich, composer
Violinist and composer Ellen Taaffe Zwilich (1939- ) was the first American woman composer to win a Pulitzer Prize (for her 1983 Symphony No. 1). Born in Miami, she studied violin at Florida State University and privately in New York. She played violin with the American Symphony Orchestra and became the first female recipient of the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in composition from Juilliard, where she studied with Elliott Carter and Roger Sessions. She has composed works for orchestra, chorus, solo voice, chamber groups, and keyboard. Her music is melodic and lyrical.
Composed in 1987, "Thanksgiving Song" is a simple, elegant, meditative composition set to a text written by Zwilich. The work is mostly unison with a bell-like and percussive piano accompaniment.
Score: Zwilich, Ellen Taaffe. "Thanksgiving Song" (SATB and piano). Bryn Mawr, PA: Merion Music, 1987.
The Eight Chestnut Horses: A Collection of World Music - Luther College Nordic Choir
A wonderful selection of exciting world music sung by an excellent chorus awaits the listener of this recording, which includes contemporary works as well as arrangements of various folk songs. The Luther College Nordic Choir, founded in 1946, is an internationally recognized collegiate ensemble. Weston Noble was the conductor from 1948-2005. Allen Hightower is the present conductor. (I've often found that the most unusual music will appear on a recording by a volunteer group or college chorus. In many cases, these pieces are commissioned by that group from a local composer.)
Sample Selection: "Naiman Sharag" ("The Eight Chestnut Horses"); Se Enkhbayar, composer
Mongolian composer Se Enkhbayar was born in the Inner Mongolian Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. As the son of a herdsman, he grew up in a rural environment, learning traditional folk music and combining that knowledge with a reverence for nature and the world around him. He co-founded the Mongolian Youth Choir in 1987 and has been composing for the group ever since. As a singer, he also performs with the performance troupe of the Inner Mongolian Radio and TV Station.
"Naiman Sharag" is a thrilling tribute to the Mongolian horses of Genghis Khan. Sung in Mongolian, this exciting work draws the listener across the Mongolian plains with the horses and their riders.
Score: Se Enkhbayar. "Naiman Sharag" ("The Eight Chestnut Horses"). Corvallis, Oregon: Earthsongs, 1998.
Buy: Available from Primarily A Cappella or Luther College.
The Flemish Masters: Netherlanders in Italy in the 16th century, Vol. 1 - Pomerium Musices
This superb recording contains sacred and secular works by Orlando di Lasso, Giaches de Wert, Adrian Willaert, Jacob Arcadelt and Cipriano de Rore. Pomerium Musices ("A Garden of Music") is a New York ensemble founded in 1972 to present music composed for vocal ensembles and virtuoso chapel choirs in the Renaissance.
Be sure to listen to: Cipriano de Rore's "Dissimulare etiam sperasti, perfide, tantum." This particular selection is a good example of serendipity; it is a gorgeous, sonorous setting of Dido's speech from Book 4 of the Aeneid, in which she asks Aeneas why he is leaving. The speech is divided into three parts, and de Rore sets the first part for five voices, the second for six, and the third for seven. I stumbled upon it while searching for another composition by de Rore, and found it on the same recording.
Sample Selection: "Dissimulare Etiam Sperasti"
Cipriano de Rore (ca. 1515-1565) was a Flemish composer who spent a large part of his career in Italy. He is the most important of the early Italian madrigal composers, writing over 120 madrigals, as well as sacred motets, masses, secular motets, and chansons. His beautifully-crafted works often make use of chromatics, as well as startling jumps in range.
Score: Fünf Vergil-Motten: zu 4-7 Stimmen. Wolfenbuettel: Moeseler, 1956. It is Vol. 54 of Das Chorwerk.
Buy: This particular CD is currently unavailable, but check out ArkivMusic for other recordings by Pomerium Musices.
The Road to Compostela - The Rose Ensemble
This fascinating recording features works from the 12th century Codex Calixtinus, a work housed in the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Spain. The Codex is a manuscript collection of music and writings about St. James of Compostela, and most of the music on the recording is original music from that work. There also are contemporary compositions by Victor Zupanc and J. David Moore on texts from the Codex.
Founded in 1996 by artistic director Jordan Sramek, the Minneapolis-based Rose Ensemble focuses on music before 1750, especially medieval chant and vocal music of the Renaissance, as well as commissioning new works complimentary to early music.
Be sure to listen to: "Annua gaudia," J. David Moore, composer. This piece was composed expressly for The Rose Ensemble and is a setting of one of the texts from the Codex Calixtinus. The original setting also appears on the recording. Moore's beautiful and exciting composition embodies the spirit of the 12th century text and is a perfect complement to the actual compositions of the time.
Sample Selection: "Annua Gaudia"
Composer J. David Moore (1962- ) was born in Boston and began composing in his senior year of high school. He received his bachelor's degree in choral conducting from Florida State University and master's in choral conducting and composition from the University of Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. He has composed and arranged a wide variety of works in many different styles. He has been a composer-in-residence at various Minnesota churches.
Moore also founded and directed two professional a cappella ensembles: The Village Waytes in Cincinnati and Dare to Breathe in St. Paul, Minnesota. He has sung with major Midwest choral groups, including The Plymouth Music Series, The Dale Warland Singers, and The Rose Ensemble. In addition he has taught songwriting and coached high school choirs and small ensembles in Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin.
Score: Moore, J. David. Annua gaudia. Chapel Hill, NC: Hinshaw Music, 2004.
Buy: You can purchase the CD or download selections individually at Amazon.com. CD also available at The Rose Ensemble website.
What We Once Have Enjoyed - Northern Arizona University Choral Music
This marvelous recording is an example of the exciting, interesting, and challenging music being performed by volunteer and collegiate choruses. Edith A. Copley conducts the Northern Arizona University Chorale in performances of Rheinberger's Mass in E Flat, Fauré's Requiem, and Haydn's Missa in Angustiis, and in contemporary works by David Fanshawe, Lajos Bárdos, Edwin Fissinger, Barrie Cabena, Pauline Oliveras, Folke Rabe, Dede Duson, and Northern Arizona University School of Music faculty member Judith Cloud. I found this recording in the "pre-owned" recordings section of a local recordings store.
Be sure to listen to: Three Mesa Songs, Judith Cloud, composer. "High Mesa Land," the first piece, is a shimmering eight-part a cappella work describing the openness of the landscape. "There is a Color in Nature," for double chorus, Indian flute, and rainstick, is a haunting composition that describes the warm colors of the Southwest. "Power," for SATB chorus and Indian drum, is a rhythmic, forceful description of Native American ritual connections with nature.
Sample Selection: "High Mesa Land"
Sample Selection: "There is Color in Nature"
Sample Selection: "Power"
Judith Cloud is coordinator of voice at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff and teaches studio voice and vocal pedagogy. In addition, she is an accomplished mezzo-soprano soloist and composer who has performed throughout the United States, premiering many new works by young composers as well as her own music. She received performance degrees from the North Carolina School of the Arts and from Florida State University. She has been a member of the music faculty for The North Carolina School of the Arts, Florida Community College at Jacksonville, and Indiana State University.
Score: Cloud, Judith. Three Mesa Songs. CloudWalk Press, 1994. Contact professor Cloud at 928-523-1856 or [email protected].
Buy: To purchase contact the Choral Studies Office, Northern Arizona University, 928-523-5190.
