The War Requiem, Op. 66, is a large-scale setting of the Requiem composed by Benjamin Britten mostly in 1961 and completed in January 1962. The War Requiem was performed for the consecration of the new Coventry Cathedral, which was built after the original fourteenth-century structure was destroyed in a World War II bombing raid. The traditional Latin texts are interspersed, in telling juxtaposition, with extra-liturgical poems by Wilfred Owen, written during World War I.
The Glagolitic Mass is a composition for soloists, double chorus, organ and orchestra by Leoš Janáček. The work was completed on 15 October 1926 and premiered by the Brno Arts Society, conducted by Jaroslav Kvapil, in Brno on 5 December 1927. Janáček revised the mass the next year.
A Sea Symphony is an hour-long work for soprano, baritone, chorus and large orchestra written by Ralph Vaughan Williams between 1903 and 1909. The first and longest of his nine symphonies, it was first performed at the Leeds Festival in 1910 with the composer conducting, and its maturity belies the relatively young age – 30 – when he began sketching it. Moreover it is one of the first symphonies in which a chorus is used throughout as an integral part of the texture and it helped set the stage for a new era of symphonic and choral music in Britain during the first half of the 20th century. It was never numbered.
Agnus Dei(Lamb of God) is a choral composition in one movement by Samuel Barber, his own arrangement of his Adagio for Strings (1936). In 1967, he set the Latin words of the liturgical Agnus Dei, a part of the Mass, for mixed chorus with optional organ or piano accompaniment. The music, in B-flat minor, has a duration of about eight minutes.
Sancta Civitas is an oratorio by Ralph Vaughan Williams. Written between 1923 and 1925, it was his first major work since the Mass in G minor two years previously. Vaughan Williams began working on the piece from a rented furnished house in the village of Danbury, Essex, found for him by his former pupil, Cecil Armstrong Gibbs.
Patrick Arthur Sheldon Hadley was a British composer.
Hodie is a cantata by Ralph Vaughan Williams. Composed between 1953 and 1954, it is the composer's last major choral-orchestral composition, and was premiered under his baton at Worcester Cathedral, as part of the Three Choirs Festival, on 8 September 1954. The piece is dedicated to Herbert Howells. The cantata, in 16 movements, is scored for chorus, boys' choir, organ and orchestra, and features tenor, baritone, and soprano soloists.
Giacomo Puccini's Messa or Messa a quattro voci is a Mass composed for orchestra and four-part choir with tenor and baritone soloists. Strictly speaking, the piece is a full Mass, not a true Messa di Gloria.
Mass of the Children is a major work of English composer John Rutter and a non-liturgical Missa brevis, with the traditional Latin and Greek Mass text interwoven with several English poems.
"Sea-Drift" is the title of a section of Walt Whitman's great poetic work Leaves of Grass, first published in 1855. It is a compilation of poems referring to the sea or the sea-shore.
Sea Drift is among the larger-scale musical works by the composer Frederick Delius. Completed in 1903–04 and first performed in 1906, it is a setting for baritone, chorus and orchestra of words by Walt Whitman.
A choral symphony is a musical composition for orchestra, choir, and sometimes solo vocalists that, in its internal workings and overall musical architecture, adheres broadly to symphonic musical form. The term "choral symphony" in this context was coined by Hector Berlioz when he described his Roméo et Juliette as such in his five-paragraph introduction to that work. The direct antecedent for the choral symphony is Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. Beethoven's Ninth incorporates part of the Ode an die Freude, a poem by Friedrich Schiller, with text sung by soloists and chorus in the last movement. It is the first example of a major composer's use of the human voice on the same level as instruments in a symphony.
There have been three choirs named The BBC Chorus in the history of the British Broadcasting Corporation.
- Today's BBC Symphony Chorus. Founded in 1928 as the BBC National Chorus, it changed its name to the BBC Chorus in 1932, before changing it again in 1935 to the BBC Choral Society.
- A 42-strong professional chorus developed in the 1930s. It would perform either alone or with the BBC Choral Society as a "choir within a choir". It was abolished in 1961 following changes to the BBC's choral structures.
- Today's BBC Singers. Founded in 1924 as a 16-strong BBC Wireless Chorus, and formally renamed The BBC Singers in 1935, it was expanded to 28 in 1961 and renamed The BBC Chorus as part of reforms to the BBC's choral set-up. It was then renamed The BBC Singers once more in 1972.
Roderick Gregory Coleman Williams OBE is a British baritone and composer.
The Missa Brevis by Leonard Bernstein is a musical setting of parts of the mass ordinary in Latin for a mixed a cappella choir with countertenor solo and percussion. It is also Bernstein's last complete choral work, due to his death a year after its completion in 1989.
Songs of Sunset is a work by Frederick Delius, written in 1906–07, and scored for mezzo-soprano and baritone soli, SATB chorus and large orchestra. The words are by Ernest Dowson.
Requiem für einen jungen Dichter is an extended composition by Bernd Alois Zimmermann, written from 1967 to 1969 for two speakers, soprano and baritone soloists, three choirs, jazz band, organ, tapes and a large orchestra. Subtitled Lingual, it sets a text that includes the Latin liturgical Mass for the Dead and literary, philosophical, religious and political texts, related to politics and the history of mind during the composer's life. The work has elements of a cantata, an oratorio and an audio play.
Mack Wilberg's Requiem is a large-scale work for chorus, orchestra, a soprano and a baritone soloist. Wilberg began composition in 2006 and it was premiered in 2007 in Salt Lake City, Utah. It comprises seven movements, which together last thirty-four minutes. It was published in 2008 by Oxford University Press.
Five Tudor Portraits (1935), by Ralph Vaughan Williams, is a work scored for contralto, baritone, mixed chorus and orchestra. It sets several poems, or extracts from poems, by the 15th/16th-century poet John Skelton, portraying five characters with a mixture of satire, compassion, acerbity and earthy humour. Though acclaimed by critics, it has not been so frequently performed as some of Vaughan Williams' other works. In its complete form it lasts about 42 minutes, though the composer also sanctioned the performance of individual movements separately.
