Drawing on the accounts of those who knew Duruflé personally as well as on Frazier's own detailed research, this new biography offers a broad sketch of this modest and elusive man, widely recognized today for having created some of the greatest works in the organ repertory - and the masterful Requiem. Frazier also examines the career and contributions of Duruflé's wife, the formidable organist Marie-Madeleine Duruflé-Chevalier.

This innovative survey of large choral-orchestral works is a continuation of the author's previous study of twentieth century works with English texts. Green examines nearly one hundred works, from Rachmaninov's Vesna to Penderecki's Song of Songs. For each work, he provides a biography of the composer, complete instrumentation, text sources, editions, availability of performing materials, performance issues, discography, and bibliography of the composer and the work. Based upon direct score study, each work has been evaluated in terms of potential performance problems, rehearsal issues, and level of difficulty for both the choir and orchestra. When present, solo roles are described. The composers represented in this work include Bela Bartok, Leonard Bernstein, Ernest Bloch, Maurice Duruf , Hans Werner Henze, Paul Hindemith, Arthur Honegger, Leos Janacek, Gy rgy Ligeti, Gustav Mahler, Carl Orff, Krzysztof Penderecki, Francis Poulenc, Igor Stravinsky, Anton Webern, and Kurt Weill. Written as a field guide for conductors and others involved in programming concerts for choir and orchestra, this text will prove a useful source of new repertoire ideas and an invaluable aid to rehearsal preparation.

Choral-Orchestral Repertoire: A Conductor’s Guide, Omnibus Edition offers an expansive compilation of choral-orchestral works from 1600 to the present. Synthesizing Jonathan D. Green’s earlier six volumes on this repertoire, this edition updates and adds to the over 750 oratorios, cantatas, choral symphonies, masses, secular works for large and small ensembles, and numerous settings of liturgical and biblical texts for a wide variety of vocal and instrumental combinations. Each entry includes a brief biographical sketch of the composer, approximate duration, text sources, performing forces, available editions, and locations of manuscript materials, as well as descriptive commentary, a discography, and a bibliography. Unique to this edition are practitioner’s evaluations of the performance issues presented in each score. These include the range, tessitura, and nature of each solo role and a determination of the difficulty of the choral and orchestral portions of each composition. There is also a description of the specific challenges, staffing, and rehearsal expectations related to the performance of each work. Choral-Orchestral Repertoire is an essential resource for conductors and students of conducting as they search for repertoire appropriate to their needs and the abilities of their ensembles.

Since time immemorial, the response of the living to death has been to commemorate the life of the departed through ceremonies and rituals. For nearly two millennia, the Christian quest for eternal peace has been expressed in a poetic-musical structure known as the requiem. Traditional requiem texts, among them the anonymous medieval Latin poem Dies Irae ('Day of Wrath'), have inspired an untold number of composers in different ages and serving different religions, Western and Eastern. This book, the first comprehensive survey of requiem music for nearly half a century, provides a great deal of diverse and detailed information that will be of use to the professional musician, the musical scholar, the choral conductor, the theologian and liturgist, and the general reader. The main body of the guide is a description of some 250 requiems. Each entry includes a concise biography of the composer and a description of the composition. Details of voicing, orchestration, editions, and discography are given. An extensive bibliography includes dictionaries, encyclopedias, prayer books, monographs, and articles. An appendix lists more than 1700 requiems not discussed within the main text.

"Works to be included must be for full chorus and orchestra, containing some English text, and composed between 1900 and 1972"--Introd.