Your top 5 Choral works?

[jurajjak]

Hi,

Thanks for the welcome.

Bliss' Morning Heroes is a wonderful (if textually eccentric) work, which I suppose is performed more often in the UK than here in the US (which is to say, never).  Someone really needs to revive this--the first movement alone is one of the most gorgeous recitatives ever.

I'd be interested in peoples' suggestions for favorite choral works written after 1950 (or thereabouts)--I'm always looking for new/obscure stuff. 


thanks,
andrew

[karlhenning]

I'd be interested in peoples' suggestions for favorite choral works written after 1950 (or thereabouts)--I'm always looking for new/obscure stuff. 

Well, Andrew, there are the obvious late Stravinsky works:

Canticum sacrum
Threni
Requiem Canticles

Of these, the first and third are unqualified favorites for me.  And the massive Threni, even if there are bits which I am still mulling over, has more than enough going for it that I call it a favorite, too.

An English composer living in Portugal, Ivan Moody, has a fine talent for Orthodox-infused choral writing;  I'd especially commend:

Passion & Resurrection
The Akáthistos Hymn

Three very different works, though I like them all very well, by Charles Wuorinen:

Genesis
Mass for the Restoration of St Luke in the Fields
Missa brevis

Not particularly like anything else you've heard a choir sing, is Rothko Chapel by Morton Feldman.

[jurajjak]

Hi,

Thanks for the recommendations.  Wuorinen is a composer I've been meaning to listen to, but don't know much about.

I recently came across Gubaidulina's early cantata "Night in Memphis" (on an odd German import CD)...I found it rather exciting.


andrew

[Maciek]

The "natural" Top 5 (with a whole lot missing):

• Bach Mass in B Minor
• Beethoven Missa Solemnis
• Brahms German Requiem
• Mozart Requiem
• Stravinsky Symphony of Psalms

The off the beaten path set:

• Augustyn Bloch - Anenaiki
• Henryk Mikolaj Gorecki - Symphony No. 2 OR any of his works for choir a capella
• Eugeniusz Knapik - Introduction to a Mystery
• Penderecki - Stabat Mater from St Luke's Passion OR Agnus Dei from Polish Requiem OR Song of the Cherubim
• Pawel Szymanski - Viderunt omnes fines terrae

[jurajjak]

Thanks...I don't know the Bloch or Knapik...I'll have to check them out.

[Topaz]

Schubert - Mass 6,  D 950
Brahms - German Requiem
Beethoven - Missa Solemnis
Haydn - The Creation
Mozart - Requiem


..........

I'd put Schubert at the top of my list in any almost genre, hence my avatar!

I used to like Handel's Messiah but the funny thing is that I've gone off it lately.  Same with Bach's Mass in B Minor. I'm not sure what exactly may have caused this.