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...

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...

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,...

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 La dame de Monte-Carlo, dedicated to Duval, a ‘monologue for soprano and orchestra’, is often performed with piano, and with which Poulenc significantly concludes his Journal de mes Mélodies. The poem is taken from Jean...

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 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 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...

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...