The Quatre poèmes de Max Jacob, composed in 1921, show Poulenc at his most avant-garde. To the already edgy ensemble of flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and trumpet Poulenc adds lines of dissonant counterpoint punctuated by knotty chords, to the...

Vocal Roles: Orphée, un rebouteux – Tenor Eurydice, une bohémienne – Soprano Chœurs des Métiers : Le Charron, Le Maréchal, Le Vannier Chœurs des Animaux : L’Ours, Le Loup, Le Renard, Le Sanglier...

REPRINT SERIES Perséphone (Persephone) is a musical work (mélodrame) for female narrator, tenor solo, mixed chorus, children's chorus, dancers and orchestra with music by Igor Stravinsky and a libretto by André Gide.It was first...

REPRINT SERIES Tilimbom is the first movement of "3 Histoires pour Enfants" by Igor Stravinsky. First published for medium voice and piano, the composer later orchestrated it for Voice and Orchestra in 1954.

REPRINT SERIES Seven, They Are Seven (Russian: Семеро их) (op. 30) is a cantata by Sergei Prokofiev composed in 1917 for large orchestra, chorus, and dramatic tenor soloist. It was composed in Yessentuki and Kislovodsk, and the words are taken from the...

For St. Cecilia (subtitled “Ceremonial Ode”) was commissioned by the St. Cecilia’s Day Festival Committee and premiered in the Royal Albert Hall on 22 November 1947, St. Cecilia’s Day (Cecilian works by Purcell and Handel were...

Poulenc's cantata Le Bal Masqué (for Baritone or Mezzo-Soprano and Chamber Orchestra) is written to texts by the poet Max Jacob, whose work can be seen as closely approaching surrealism; it dates from 1932. The instrumentation is strongly...

REPRINT SERIES In 1930 Ottorino Respighi composed Lauda per la Natività del Signore, the only sacred choral piece among his works. In this song of praise to the miracle of Christmas,0 majestic sounding choral passages alternate with the soloistic...

REPRINT SERIES Riders to the Sea is a short one-act opera by Ralph Vaughan Williams, based on the play of the same name by John Millington Synge. The composer completed the score in 1927, but it was not premiered until 1 December 1937, at the Royal...

ORIGINAL CHORAL VERSION 1938 Serenade to Music is an orchestral concert work completed in 1938 by English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, written as a tribute to conductor Sir Henry Wood. It features an orchestra and 16 vocal soloists, with lyrics...

The accompaniment of this piece exists in two versions:A version - for strings, harp (or piano) and cymbals, which is intended for performance with a small chorus. B version - for full orchestra (instrumentation as listed above) which is the version...

REPRINT SERIES Epithalamion (which the Oxford English Dictionary defines as ''A nuptial song or poem in praise of the bride and bridegroom'') is a large-scale cantata from 1957 based on Edmund Spenser's love-poem of the same name: musically, it draws...

Certainly Prokofiev’s own ‘stories’ for children end happily – and there are quite a number, not merely those recorded here. The first was The Ugly Duckling, a setting of an adaptation (by Nina Meshchersky, Prokofiev’s first...

REPRINT SERIES Dies Natalis is a cantata for solo voice and string orchestra. The opening introductory orchestral movement is followed by four movements for accompanied voice in which Finzi set mystical texts by the seventeenth-century English poet...

REPRINT SERIES The Symphony of Psalms is a choral symphony in three movements composed by Igor Stravinsky in 1930 during his neoclassical period. The work was commissioned by Serge Koussevitzky to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Boston Symphony...

REPRINT SERIES The Gloria by Francis Poulenc, FP 177, scored for soprano solo, large orchestra, and chorus, is a setting of the Gloria text from the mass ordinary. One of Poulenc's most celebrated works, it was commissioned by the Koussevitsky...

In 1919 the premiere of Le Bestiaire on poems by Guillaume Apollinaire (with Suzanne Peignot, friend and first interpreter of the composer’s mélodies). 6 movements: I. Le dromadaire II. Le chèvre du Thibet III. La sauterelle IV...

Perhaps one of Finzi's finest compositions, this pacifist masterpiece is all too rarely performed. The beautiful music, scored for tenor and small orchestra, was composed over a span of about 20 years from the 1920s to 1944, as memories and realities...