Sing It!: Cantatas & Oratorios

Includes the basic title page information, length, description of required performing forces, and location of the source for 3,450 extended choral works--of which 450 are categorized as oratorios--by over 1,000 composers.

"A Conductor's Guide to Nineteenth-Century Choral-Orchestral Works, the fifth in Jonathan D. Green's series of books, addresses works of the Romantic era from composers such as Beach, Beethoven, Brahms, Dvorak, Faure, Mendelssohn, Puccini, Saint-Saens, Schubert, Scriabin, and Verdi. Amassed is a varied collection of significant choral-orchestral works arranged by composer." "Each section begins with a brief biographical sketch, including a selected bibliography, then lists the composer's works. Green presents important details of each work: approximate duration, text sources, the voices and instruments required for the performance, editions currently available, and locations of manuscript materials. Green also provides notes and comments on performance issues, as well as solo roles and the level of difficulty of each piece. The sections conclude with a selective discography and bibliography. The information is vital for aiding scholars with research, and helping conductors in choosing repertoire appropriate to their needs and the abilities of their ensembles."--BOOK JACKET.

Howard Smither has written the first definitive work on the history of the oratorio since Arnold Schering published hisGeschichte des Oratoriumsin 1911. This volume is the first of a four-volume comprehensive study that offers a new synthesis of what is known to date about the oratorio. Volume 1, divided into three parts, opens with the examination of the medieval, Renaissance, and early Baroque antecedents and origins of the oratorio, with emphasis on Rome and Philip Neri's Congregation of the Oratory and with special attention to the earliest works for which the termoratorioseems appropriate. The second part recounts the development of the oratorio in Italy, circa 1640-1720. It reviews the social contexts, patrons, composers, poets, librettos, and music of the oratorio in Italy, especially in Vienna and Paris. The procedure adapted throughout the work is to treat first the social context, particularly the circumstances of performance of the oratorio in a given area and period, then to treat the libretto, and finally the music. For each geographic area and period, the author has selected for special attention a few oratorios that appear to be particularly important or representative. He has verified the information offered in the specialized literature whenever possible by reference to the music or documents. In a number of areas, particular seventeenth-century Italy, in which relatively few previous studies have been undertaken or secondary sources have proven to be inadequate, the author has examined the primary sources in manuscript and printed form—music, librettos, and documents of early oratorio history. Impressive research and intelligent integration of disparate elements make this complicated, diffuse subject both readable and accessible to the student of music. Volume 2,The Oratorio in the Baroque Era: Protestant Germany and England, and Volume 3,The Oratorio in the Classical Era, continue and expand the study of oratorio history. Although this series was originally announced as a three-volume study, Smither will conclude with a fourth volume. This new work—the first English-language study of the history of the oratorio will become the standard work on its subject and an enduring contribution to music and scholarship.

This volume contains parallel texts and translations of all Bach's church and secular cantatas that have come down to us complete. The volume also includes a short glossary of geographical and mythological names, a list of dedicatees of the secular cantatas, a list of the poets with their dates, and an introduction to the cantatas by Martin Neary, formerly organist of Winchester Cathedral and Westminster Abbey.

Translation of: Oratorien der Welt.

The world of the oratorio : oratorio, Mass, Requiem, Te Deum, Stabat Mater, and large cantatas / Kurt Pahlen, with the collaboration of Werner Pfister, Rosemarie König ; additional material for the English language edition by Thurston Dox ; translated by Judith Schaeffer ; Reinhard G. Pauly, general editor.