Gerald Finzi’s orchestration of Let Us Garlands Bring, Op. 18, enhances the song cycle’s lyrical beauty with a richer, more expansive texture. Originally composed for baritone and piano, Finzi later arranged it for baritone and string...

Gerald Finzi’s Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, Op. 35, is a choral work composed in 1950 for a two-part chorus and chamber orchestra. The text is taken from the biblical book Ecclesiasticus (Sirach 44), a passage that honors great figures from...

Richard Strauss's Four Last Songs, composed in 1948, represents the culmination of the composer’s career and a profound reflection on life and mortality. Scored for soprano and orchestra, these four songs—Frühling (Spring), September,...

REPRINT SERIES   Ralph Vaughan Williams' Magnificat, composed in 1932, is a fascinating and unconventional setting of the biblical text traditionally associated with the Virgin Mary's song of praise. Unlike many settings of the Magnificat, which...

Luigi Dallapiccola’s Commiato (1972) is a masterful example of the composer’s late style, blending his deep engagement with serial techniques and his fascination with literary expression. Scored for soprano and a chamber ensemble of 15...

Following the composition of Five Mystical Songs in 1911, Vaughan Williams began to compose a smaller scale piece, which was completed in 1914. However, World War I delayed the presentation of the song cycle until 1920. In setting the four hymns to...

REPRINT SERIES  Though not readily associated with Anglican church music (despite being fully aware of its repertoire), Elgar composed two major extended anthems. The first—Great is the Lord, Op 67, a substantial multi-sectional work, begun...

Five Tudor Portraits (1935), by Ralph Vaughan Williams, is a work scored for contralto (or mezzo-soprano), baritone, mixed chorus and orchestra. It sets several poems, or extracts from poems, by the 15th/16th-century poet John Skelton, portraying five...

An Oxford Elegy is a work for narrator, small mixed chorus and small orchestra, written by Ralph Vaughan Williams between 1947 and 1949. It uses portions of two poems by Matthew Arnold, "The Scholar Gipsy" and "Thyrsis". The first performance took place...

REPRINT SERIES The text to both songs comes from one of Prokofiev's favorite poets, Konstantin Balmont. The two choruses in this set were entitled "The White Swan" and "The Wave." The former was premiered in 1910, with the composer conducting a...

REPRINT SERIESVaughan Williams often tended to focus on the composition of works in a specific genre at certain periods in his career. In 1913, for example, he wrote incidental scores to no less than seven plays (five by Shakespeare), and in 1920 he...

Dona nobis pacem (English: Grant us peace) is a cantata written by Ralph Vaughan Williams in 1936 and first performed on 2 October of that year. The work was commissioned to mark the centenary of the Huddersfield Choral Society. Vaughan Williams produced...

REPRINT SERIES Composed during the Second World War (most of it at a Budapest monastery) and completed in 1944, Missa Brevis was first performed in 1945, just after the end of the war, at the Budapest Opera House (where Kodály and his wife had...

Renard: histoire burlesque chantée et jouée, or The Fox: burlesque tale sung and played, is a chamber opera-ballet for four male voices and 16 instrumentalists written in 1916 by Igor Stravinsky. Its original Russian text, by the composer,...

Milhaud’s Service sacré  for baritone (cantor), narrator, mixed chorus and organ or orchestra is one of the few authentic masterpieces of twentieth century liturgical music. Composed in 1947 for San Francisco’s Temple Emanu-El, it...

Finzi wrote incidental music for a BBC broadcast of the Shakespeare's play in 1946, reworked it for a special stage presentation in 1952, and finally extracted a 10-number suite for small orchestra. The  most important of these, in Finzi's view, are...

Lo, the full, final sacrifice (Op. 26) is a festival anthem for SATB choir and organ, composed by Gerald Finzi in 1946. The work was commissioned by the Revd Walter Hussey for the 53rd anniversary of the consecration of St Matthew's Church, Northampton...

REPRINT SERIES Two short poems by the Russian symbolist poet Konstantin Balmont are set here. In both songs can be heard the combination of ‘diatonic’ and ‘octatonic’ procedures typical of Stravinsky at this time, which he...