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Anastenaria is a triptych cycle of compositions for SATB chorus, male chorus and orchestra by Greek composer Iannis Xenakis. It is, also, one of his most successful early compositions. The three movements of this cycle were composed between 1952 and 1954.
After winning the first prize in the Bucharest Music Festival in 1953 for La colombe de la paix, one of his unpublished works, Xenakis decided to complete the first and the second movement of his Anastenaria trilogy, strongly influenced by his Greek roots. He was then studying with Arthur Honegger, Darius Milhaud and, most especially, with Olivier Messiaen, who even made several changes to the original conception of this work.
Xenakis claimed that the work is based on a Greek Ritual which, after Constantine the Great, it has been reinterpreted to be a Christian ritual. In this ritual, Xenakis distinguishes up to three different phases:
Xenakis decided not to compose the third phase, in which the steer blessed by Orthodox priest is sacrificed on 21 May.
This work consists of three movements, which are often performed individually. The movement list is as follows:
The first movement is largely tonal, unlike the rest of the work. According to Hans Rudolf Zeller, the divisi in the choral parts create musical phenomena of mass resulting from the individualization of the leading voice. It is also based on the principle of overlapping, which makes each voice to proceed from its own melodic, harmonic or rhythmic personality.
The second movement, which treats the evening before the sacrifice, is conceived purely instrumentally; this movement is clearly closer to the style of his contemporaries. However, from this movement on, Xenakis would no longer be constrained by serial techniques, and would explore his musical viewpoints and perspectives by using glissandos and discontinuous pitches.
The third movement was the result of this change, even though it would still not be considered stochastic music, which Xenakis would explore further in Pithoprakta . However, Xenakis removed completely any trace of serial music and started working to bring his vocal compositions to the same level as that of his instrumental and electroacoustic compositions. According to the composer himself, the third movement was separated from the rest because it was "such a step forward". [1]
A choir is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which spans from the medieval era to the present, or popular music repertoire. Most choirs are led by a conductor, who leads the performances with arm, hand, and facial gestures.
David Conte is an American composer who has written over 150 works published by E.C. Schirmer, including six operas, a musical, works for chorus, solo voice, orchestra, chamber music, organ, piano, guitar, and harp. Conte has received commissions from Chanticleer, the San Francisco Symphony Chorus, Harvard University Chorus, the Men’s Glee Clubs of Cornell University and the University of Notre Dame, GALA Choruses from the cities of San Francisco, New York, Boston, Atlanta, Seattle, and Washington, D.C., the Dayton Philharmonic, the Oakland Symphony, the Stockton Symphony, the Atlantic Classical Orchestra, the American Guild of Organists, Sonoma City Opera, and the Gerbode Foundation. He was honored with the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) Brock Commission in 2007 for his work The Nine Muses, and in 2016 he won the National Association of Teachers of Singing (NATS) Art Song Composition Award for his work American Death Ballads.
John Milford Rutter is an English composer, conductor, editor, arranger, and record producer, mainly of choral music.
SATB is an initialism that describes the scoring of compositions for choirs, and also choirs of instruments. The initials are for the voice types: S for soprano, A for alto, T for tenor and B for bass.
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Chöre für Doris, after poems by Paul Verlaine, is a three-movement a cappella choral composition by Karlheinz Stockhausen, written in 1950 and later given the number 1/11 in the composer's catalogue of works. The score is dedicated to the composer's first wife, Doris Stockhausen, née Andreae.
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Jake Runestad is an American composer and conductor of classical music based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He has composed music for a wide variety of musical genres and ensembles, but has achieved greatest acclaim for his work in the genres of opera, orchestral music, choral music, and wind ensemble. One of his principal collaborators for musical texts has been the poet Todd Boss.
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