choral music

choral music

Introduction

      music sung by a choir with two or more voices assigned to each part. Choral music is necessarily polyphonal—i.e., consisting of two or more autonomous vocal (vocal music) lines. It has a long history in European church music.

      Choral music ranks as one of several musical genres subject to misunderstanding because of false historical perspectives or misinterpretation caused by the confusion engendered by unsolved semantic problems. Choral, chorale, choir, and chorus stand in obvious relationship to one another and are in some respects used interchangeably when a body of singers (singing), for example, is referred to as a choir, a chorus (Latin noun derived from the Greek word choros), or a chorale, which properly is a Lutheran hymn tune. The adjective choral may therefore be applied in a general way (choral music, choral technique) or in a specific way (such as Beethoven's (Beethoven, Ludwig van) Choral Symphony and Choral Fantasia). The nouns chorale, choir, and chorus are frequently used as adjectives in such expressions as chorale prelude (“choral prelude” is incorrect), choir organ, or chorus part.

      The definition of choral music has by circumstance and usage been forced to comprise a far wider area than a comparable definition of an instrumental genre. It is unusual, to say the least, to perform a symphony with only a single instrument to each part, even though the opposite has occasionally happened when a string quartet movement is played by the massed strings of an orchestra. Much music now performed by choirs, however, was originally intended for soloists; and, while the lack of historical authenticity may here be deplored, it is evident that a choral performance of a madrigal (equivalent to an orchestral performance of a string quartet movement) permits many amateur musicians (musical performance) to enjoy, as members of a team, music that might otherwise escape their knowledge.

      If a choral performance of genres for several solo voices, such as the madrigal, ballett, villanella, and part-song, results in a more neutral sound and a less personal intensity of expression, it is nevertheless true that the reverse sometimes offers unsuspected advantages, as when a work written for choir alone is performed by a group of soloists. In certain cases the work may take on a new and enhanced aspect because each strand of melody within the texture carries a personal rather than a group expression.

      In defining choral music, some attention should also be paid to the enormous variation in the size of choirs. A chamber choir need contain only a dozen voices, certainly not more than 20; whereas a choir assembled for the Handel Festivals in the 19th century or for the Berlioz concerts monstres in Paris during the same epoch, might have numbered thousands. Modern traces of such massive choral effects may be found in the Symphony No. 8 in E Flat Major (sometimes called Symphony of a Thousand) of the Austrian composer Gustav Mahler (Mahler, Gustav). This work calls for a large double choir and a separate boys' choir, in addition to a large orchestra and eight soloists. On the other hand, numerous modern choral works, because of their difficulty and complexity, seem to have been composed with a chamber choir in mind, as in the case of Cinq rechants (1949) by the French composer Olivier Messiaen.

      If there is more than one voice to each part—i.e., to each line of polyphony (music of several voice parts) or strand of melody—the performance is choral, even though the actual sonority may not seem choral in the accepted sense until there are more than five or six voices to a part. Both types of singing may also coexist, since a choir may contain several capable soloists who may at certain points sing as a group without the choir or with the choir as a background. This feature is the choral equivalent of the orchestral concerto grosso, in which a small group of solo instruments alternate or combine with the main body of players. Examples of this may be found in choral music of all types and ages. The medieval rondeau was usually performed by a soloist who sang the verses, with a small choir for the refrain. When the mass became a vehicle for choral performance in the 15th century, the Christe Eleison, certain parts of the Gloria and the Credo, the Benedictus, and the Agnus Dei were frequently assigned to a group of soloists within the choir. The Eton Choirbook motets demand similar treatment since red and black text is used to differentiate between those sections intended for soloists and those for full choir. Comparable effects may be found in music written for special occasions, oratorios, verse anthems, and settings of the Passion.

      Although choirs existed throughout Europe in the Middle Ages, their role was restricted to unison singing of plainchant (plainsong). Polyphony was the exclusive preserve of soloists. This state of affairs was gradually modified for several reasons. Early forms of musical notation were not precise enough to allow choral performance of even the simplest two-part polyphony. As time went on, improved accuracy in notating pitch and time values permitted some degree of experiment in choral performance.

      Knowledge of the subtleties of mensural (precisely measured) music was at first the prerogative of a small number of initiates. The ordinary member of the plainchant choir, or schola, was not expected to understand the notation or to perform music using it. But the teaching of musical theory spread rapidly in the 14th century, and singers became better equipped and educated than they had been at any previous time. The ever-growing wealth of the church also acted to encourage choral performance, since abbeys, cathedrals, parish and collegiate churches, and court chapels vied with each other in the opulence and perfection of their choral establishments. Laws were passed enabling royal chapels to impress (that is, to seek out and enroll) eligible provincial choirboys for the great central establishments, and in consequence every boy was a soloist in his own right, just as were the countertenors, tenors, and basses. Finally, the rapidity with which composers took advantage of this situation, evolving new techniques and adapting old ones, created a tremendous surge of choral activity and composition, which the new art of music printing was to aid even further in the early years of the 16th century. From that time until the present, there has been no abatement of interest in choral music, which is performed at amateur and professional levels throughout the entire world.

Sacred music

The mass
 The ordinary of the mass (consisting of the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and Benedictus, Agnus Dei, and in some medieval masses also the “Ite, missa est”) has been a focal point of choral music for more than 600 years. The earliest masses (liturgical music), such as the four-part setting by the 14th-century French composer Guillaume de Machaut (Machaut, Guillaume de), were intended for soloists; remarkable both in musical texture and structure, they are often performed chorally today. In the 15th century this tradition, in which architectonic considerations still held sway, was carried on in the masses of the English composer John Dunstable and his Burgundian contemporary, Guillaume Dufay. The use of a plainchant cantus firmus, or dominating tenor theme, knit together the movements even though they were separated during the liturgy. Modern concert performances and recordings obscure this feature, sometimes to the disadvantage of even the greatest masterpieces, which, with all movements in immediate sequence may sound too concentrated. The Renaissance saw the highest development of the cantus firmus mass, using as the central melodic support not only plainchant but even secular songs, as Josquin's L'Homme armé (printed in 1502) or folk songs, as John Taverner's (Taverner, John) mass, The Western Wynde (c. 1520).

 Hundreds of composers wrote settings of the ordinary of the mass at this time; some, like the Italian composer Giovanni da Palestrina, wrote more than 100 masses. The Spaniards Cristóbal de Morales and Tomás Luis de Victoria and the Englishmen William Byrd and Thomas Tallis all avoided secular melodies, even though these would have been largely obscured by the texture of the voices. On the other hand, the Netherlanders Orlando di Lasso (Lasso, Orlando di) and Philippe de Monte did not hesitate to draw upon themes of diverse origins. Byrd and his Flemish contemporary Heinrich Isaac (Isaac, Heinrich) also set a considerable amount of the proper of the mass (that part of the liturgy liable to change according to the feast), but such settings remained comparatively rare.

      The parody mass found many advocates, since it was possible by this means to base a long work on all voice parts of a shorter one, such as a motet or a hymn, and by beginning with familiar and recognizable material, to progress gradually into inventive independence. This particular technique may have owed as much to convenience as to a desire to pay homage to another composer.

      The 16th- and 17th-century Venetian school, especially Giovanni Gabrieli (Gabrieli, Giovanni) and Claudio Monteverdi (Monteverdi, Claudio), added an instrumental element to the basically choral foundation of the mass. They also occasionally employed two or more choirs to create massive antiphonal effects. Further development of the orchestral mass occurred in the 17th century in the works of the Italian composers Francesco Cavalli and Alessandro Scarlatti and the French composer Marc-Antoine Charpentier, while the polychoral element was brought to a colossal and almost unmanageable pitch by Orazio Benevoli in his mass for the dedication of the Salzburg cathedral (1628) in 53 parts.

 In the 18th century, Haydn's (Haydn, Joseph) early masses, notably the Missa Sanctae Caeciliae, lean toward Italian models. His choral writing is robust and sonorous, even though four-part writing is the norm. His later masses emphasize soloists and orchestra but without diminishing the interest of the choral writing. Mozart's (Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus) early masses tend to be brief (because of the taste and dictates of his archbishop patron), yet the fugal choruses sometimes dispel this impression by their very excellence, as in the Mass in C Major, K. 317 (1779; Coronation Mass). The unfinished Mass in C Minor, K. 427, abounds in magnificent choral music.

      Remote in style and function from the Classical Viennese works, J.S. Bach's (Bach, Johann Sebastian) Mass in B Minor (1733–38) was a monument of the preceding Baroque era. It was never intended to be performed as a whole within the liturgy, and its various movements date from different periods of Bach's life. Five-part choral writing is most in evidence, the two soprano lines adding brilliance and edge to a richly contrapuntal (interwoven melody) texture. In the “Sanctus,” Bach branches into six-part polyphony, and in the “Osanna” he calls for an eight-voice double choir apt for antiphonal writing.

 Beethoven's Mass in C Major, Opus 86 (1807), and Missa Solemnis, Opus 123 (1823), written in the maturity of the Classical era, are not liturgical, yet they stem from an inner need to carry on a great tradition and to set to music a text of central importance. The role of the choir is central to the work. The composer uses it to produce effects ranging from breathtaking mystery to the utterly grandiose. The masses of the 19th-century Austrian composers Franz Schubert (Schubert, Franz) and Anton Bruckner (Bruckner, Anton) worthily continue the same tradition in their individual ways. The Petite Messe solennelle (Little Solemn Mass; 1864) of Italian composer Gioacchino Rossini (Rossini, Gioachino) was originally written for soloists, chorus, and an accompaniment of two pianos and harmonium, but it was later scored for full orchestra.

      Outstanding among 20th-century masses are those of the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, the Czech composer Leoš Janáček (Glagolitic Mass, setting an Orthodox text in Old Slavonic), and the Russo-American composer Igor Stravinsky (Stravinsky, Igor), who is said to have derived his inspiration from Mozart, although some of the effects created by the mixed chorus and wind instruments are more reminiscent of medieval music.

 The Missa pro Defunctis (“Mass for the Dead”), or requiem mass (often simply called Requiem) also stimulated numerous choral masterpieces, beginning with Jean d'Ockeghem in the late 15th century and continuing through Victoria, Felice Anerio, Scarlatti, Mozart, Luigi Cherubini, Hector Berlioz, Giuseppe Verdi, and Gabriel Fauré to the present century. Johannes Brahms's Ein deutsches Requiem (A German Requiem, 1857–68) is based on the composer's own selection of Biblical texts. The Requiem (1914–16) of the early 20th-century British composer Frederick Delius derives its libretto from the 19th-century German philosopher and poet Friedrich Nietzsche. The War Requiem, Opus 66 (first performed, 1962), of the British composer Benjamin Britten (Britten, Benjamin) makes skillful and impressive use of liturgical texts but also contains secular poetry by Wilfred Owen, killed in World War I. The work as a whole is thus linked with the senseless suffering of war and the idea of sacrifice induced by false patriotism. The choral effects are rich in novelty, originality, and forcefulness. One of the most successful of 20th-century masses for unaccompanied chorus is the Mass in G Major (1937) by Francis Poulenc (Poulenc, Francis).

 In the Middle Ages, the service of greatest musical importance, after the mass, was vespers. Its component antiphons, psalms, hymn, and Magnificat have given rise to much noble choral music, from the time of the Flemish composer Adriaan Willaert in the 16th century, through Monteverdi, Scarlatti, and Mozart. In the Anglican Church (Anglicanism), service settings embrace Holy Communion and Morning and Evening Prayer and have been continuously written since the time of Byrd and Tallis. These early services for choir and organ were followed by “verse services,” in which solo voices played an important part, combining or alternating with the choir. By the time of the 17th-century British composer Henry Purcell (Purcell, Henry), instruments were accepted as a means to fuller accompaniment, notably in the Chapel Royal, London. But modern composers, except in works for ceremonial use, tend to return to scoring their services for choir and organ.

Motets (motet)
      Choral music has been enriched for centuries by the composition of motets, which were originally settings of liturgical or biblical texts. Responsories (liturgical texts originally performed responsively) were of major importance until the great monastic institutions lost their influence in the early years of the 16th century. Subsequently, the choral motet was mainly cultivated in royal and collegiate chapels. Settings of votive antiphons (verses preceding psalms and canticles), frequently, though not exclusively, texts in honour of the Virgin Mary, were popular in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. Many of these compositions demanded a high degree of skill and virtuosity from the choir and its soloists; a noble example is the British composer John Browne's Stabat Mater, from The Eton Choirbook. An Italian contemporary, Giovanni Spataro, displays a more simple and restrained style in his four-part Virgo prudentissima, which nevertheless belongs to the same category of motet.

 During the 16th and 17th centuries, the term motet was used in looser connotation, sometimes linked with a few verses of a psalm, sometimes a complete psalm including Gloria Patri (lesser doxology). Many of these longer settings, by 16th-century composers such as Josquin, Willaert, and Lasso, attain the level of symphonic choral writing through their high degree of formal organization and their imaginative vocal scoring. The concertato motet (using contrasting groups of singers and instruments), as developed and perfected in the 17th century by Gabrieli, Monteverdi, Heinrich Schütz, and Scarlatti, added the vivid colours of the orchestral palette to the already highly malleable vocal textures. Pergolesi's Stabat Mater, although sometimes performed as a choral work, was originally written with solo voices in mind. Bach's motets, of which Jesu meine Freude (Jesus My Joy; c. 1723) is a typical and splendid example, return to the a cappella manner of performance. Contrary to one popular conception, this often included instrumental doubling of the voice parts and the use of an organ continuo, an improvised part. Subsequently little used in the Protestant Church, the motet continued to be cultivated by the Catholic composers of Europe and the Americas. Especially worthy of note are the motets and psalm settings of Anton Bruckner, whose Te Deum (composed 1881, revised 1883–84) is one of his choral masterpieces. Conservative tastes in much religious music somewhat discouraged the greatest talents from contributing fully to this genre. Stravinsky's Threni (on the Lamentations of Jeremiah), for instance, is more frequently heard in the concert hall than in church, as are also Poulenc's Stabat Mater (1951) and other liturgical motets of his.

Anthems (anthem)
      The use of the vernacular after the Reformation in England made it necessary for composers to forge a new style of choral music. The elaborate melodic tracery of Robert Fayrfax and John Taverner gave way to a completely unelaborate kind of choral counterpoint designed to allow the English words to be clearly heard. Both Thomas Tallis (Tallis, Thomas) and William Byrd (Byrd, William) made outstanding contributions to the development of the anthem. Tallis perfected a style of contrapuntally animated homophony that ensured clarity of declamation, while Byrd experimented with more elaborate textures both in full anthems (for choir alone) and in verse anthems, in which the choir was supported by the organ and sometimes other instruments, allowing solo voices to detach themselves from the main body of singers. Among Byrd's finest verse anthems are Christ rising again (for Easter) and O God that guides the cheerful sun. Orlando Gibbons (Gibbons, Orlando) carried to a further stage the use of a consort of viols, which accompanies with a rich but discreet body of sound the countertenor and bass soloists in Glorious and powerful god. One of the most effective of his full anthems is the seven-part Hosanna to the Son of David for Palm Sunday. Thomas Tomkins (Tomkins, Thomas) displays a mastery of 12-part polyphony in his full anthem O praise the Lord, all ye heathen, but for quiet expressive intimacy of thought there is little to surpass When David heard that Absalom was slain. Among a considerable number of verse anthems by Tomkins, two of the most inspiring are My Shepherd is the living Lord and Thou art my King, O God, both of which can be accompanied by organ alone or by organ and string ensemble.

      When the monarchy was restored in 1660, Matthew Locke (Locke, Matthew) contributed a number of fine anthems to the repertory of the revived Chapel Royal, among them the double-choir setting of Not unto us, O Lord and the grandiose, almost Venetian The king shall rejoice, scored for three four-part choirs and orchestra. Another eminent musician of the time was Pelham Humfrey (Humfrey, Pelham), whose verse anthem By the waters of Babylon is one of the best examples of its kind. For chromatically expressive music Michael Wise provides an admirable pattern in his The ways of Sion do mourn, as does Daniel Roseingrave in his Lord, thou art become gracious.

      The verse anthem with instruments reached its zenith in the late 17th century in the music of Henry Purcell and John Blow (Blow, John). Much of their music was performed in the Chapel Royal, the choir and consorts of which had improved markedly. Among the most memorable of Purcell's full anthems are the eight-part Hear my prayer, O Lord and the five-part Remember not, Lord, our offences. His most successful verse anthems frequently make use of short, impressive passages for choir alone, as in the evocation of the turtle's voice in My beloved spake and the moving harmonies of “O worship the Lord” toward the end of O sing unto the Lord. Blow excels in the antiphony of verse soloists and full choir in I beheld, and lo, a great multitude. In his full anthems, such as God is our hope and strength and O Lord God of my salvation, he sometimes almost equals Purcell in the richness and resource of his eight-part writing.

      Of the succeeding generation of composers, William Croft seems most at ease in his full anthems, notably Put me not to rebuke and O Lord, rebuke me not, two distinct and different works in spite of the similarity of text. Maurice Greene excelled in this style in works such as God is our hope and strength and Acquaint thyself with God. William Boyce carried on the tradition of sensitive word setting in such works as I have surely built thee an house and O where shall wisdom be found?.

      Although the late 18th and early 19th centuries did not exactly overflow with masterpieces, a trio of composers proved themselves competent craftsmen. O Lord, look down from heaven will assure Jonathan Battishill a place in the history of the genre, while the Epiphany anthem O God, who by the leading of a star speaks eloquently for Thomas Attwood. Although Samuel Wesley, converted to Catholicism, chose Latin for the greater number of his church compositions, one of these is sometimes sung to its English text, Sing aloud with gladness.

      Samuel Sebastian Wesley (Wesley, Samuel) attempted, often with considerable success, to raise up the anthem to a new level of artistry and accomplishment, extending it so as to form a kind of cantata giving freer rein to soloists than was customary in the older type of verse anthem. His finest contributions are perhaps The Wilderness; Ascribe unto The Lord; and O Lord, Thou art my God. Also noteworthy from this epoch are Sir John Goss's setting of The Wilderness, Thomas Attwood Walmisley's O give thanks, and the double-choir anthem O Saviour of the world by Sir Frederick Gore Ouseley.

      Sir Joseph Barnby, Sir John Stainer, and Sir Arthur Sullivan wrote anthems of fair quality, but not until Sir Hubert Parry (Parry, Sir Hubert, Baronet) demonstrated the need for a return to conscientious word setting did new spirit begin to pervade English church music in works such as Parry's double-choir anthem Lord let me know mine end, Sir Charles Stanford's similarly scored Jesus Christ is risen today, and Charles Wood's O thou the central orb. In the 20th century, T.T. Noble's The souls of the righteous and John Ireland's Greater love hath no man are typical of the earlier period, while O pray for the peace of Jerusalem by Herbert Howells and Benjamin Britten's Hymn to St. Peter successfully continue a long tradition.

      The cantata, as developed in northern Germany in the 17th century, often relied only upon soloists and a small group of instruments, although the role of the chorus gradually became more important. In more than 200 church cantatas written by J.S. Bach, the chorus often occupies a prominent place and is given music of challenging complexity—frequently on a par with the music of the accompanying instrumental forces. The cantatas use the chorus again in the closing chorale, which is usually a special setting of a hymn tune with orchestral doubling or accompaniment.

 In Italy, the oratorio achieved what was beyond the motet's capabilities by projecting through verse and music a story of Biblical origin that the public could enjoy while learning. Giacomo Carissimi (Carissimi, Giacomo), whose Jephtha is still an established classic, led the way to the oratorios of Antonio Vivaldi (Juditha triumphans, first performed 1716), Handel (a long series of oratorios written for London, all dramatic in form except for Israel in Egypt of 1739 and the Messiah of 1741), and Haydn, whose greatest oratorio is Die Schöpfung (1798; The Creation). The choral contribution to 19th-century oratorios remained at a remarkably high level, enhancing such works as Beethoven's Christus Am Ölberg (1803; Christ on the Mount of Olives), the perennially popular Elijah (1846) of Mendelssohn, Franz Liszt's Die Legende von der heiligen Elisabeth (The Legend of St. Elizabeth), Berlioz's L'Enfance du Christ, Opus 25 (1854), and a series of compositions by the British composer Edward Elgar, culminating in The Dream of Gerontius (1900). The oratorio tradition, because of its links with choral bodies, has shown constant renewal and growth in the 20th century. Among outstanding 20th-century oratorios are Frank Martin's Golgotha (1949), Arthur Honegger's Le Roi David (King David; 1921), Sir William Walton's Belshazzar's Feast (1931), and Bernard Rogers' The Passion (1944). A work in oratorio style, though in a class of its own, is Ernest Bloch's Avodath Hakodesh (Sacred Service) composed 1930–33 and scored for baritone solo, chorus, and orchestra.

Occasional music
      In addition to sacred and secular works, a very considerable number of compositions, many of them choral, were written for great occasions of state. These include motets and cantatas based on special texts, suitable for performance in a palace, outdoors on a platform or rampart, in a private chapel, or wherever the occasion demanded. The signing of a peace treaty, a royal marriage, ducal obsequies, consecration, election of a doge—all these and many similar events called for music written to order; since composers have always been happy to receive a commission, the number of occasional works is virtually incalculable.

      Soon after St. Mark's, Venice, inaugurated in 1403 a choir of boys from the city, their master Antonio Romano was invited to compose a festive work in honour of the doge. When Francesco Foscari was elected doge in 1423, Christoforo de Monte introduced the choral parts of his motet with brass fanfares. Dufay, asked to produce a stirring work for the consecration of a new cathedral at Patras (now Pátrai) in Greece, scored his Apostolo glorioso-Cum tua doctrina-Andreas (1426) for wind ensemble and mixed chorus; but, although the work was undoubtedly performed in the cathedral, the use of an Italian rather than a Latin text places it firmly in the category of occasional music. An equally impressive work by the same composer, Supremum est mortalibus bonum pax (The Supreme Gift for Mortals Is Peace), was written expressly for the signing of the Treaty of Viterbo in 1433, when Pope Eugenius IV and King Sigismund of Bohemia were both present at the ceremony. Toward the end of the motet, the choir sings, in successive block chords, the names of Pope and King, syllable by syllable. Another peace treaty celebrated in music is that of Bagnolo, Italy, when the Franco-Flemish composer Loyset Compère (Compère, Loyset) was commissioned to write the motet Quis numerare queat (1484). Imaginative use is made of the chorus throughout this work, even to the extent of the composer's choice of tessitura (high or low part of the voice range): when the chorus sings of the lamentations of the people over the terrors of war, the words are sung by the dark-hued combination of tenors, baritones, and basses in their middle or lower register. A further example of choral writing so disposed as to represent a state of mind is the “Amen” of Isaac's Optime pastor (written in 1513 in honour of the newly elected Pope Leo X), where the opulent six-part polyphony suggests the wealth and substance of the Emperor Maximilian I and his desire to impress listeners with a show of temporal power at least the equivalent of the Pope's spiritual power.

      Occasional music is sometimes considered of less value than sacred or secular music, even when it stems from a composer of high reputation. Since the work could by definition receive only one formal performance and since it might have been written in a hurry, the theory is that the music must be inferior. There are, however, examples of such works whose music was used for more than one occasion, thanks to the simple but effective process of stripping away the original text and substituting another, or even substituting one name for another. A study of the text of Taverner's (Taverner, John) motet Christe Jesu pastor bone (Jesus Christ, Good Shepherd) shows that it must have been intended first as a votive antiphon for St. William of York, then as a paraliturgical prayer for Cardinal Wolsey (Taverner being at one time organist and master of the choristers at Cardinal's College, now Christ Church, at Oxford), and finally as a prayer for Henry VIII. Similarly, the anthem O Lord, make thy servant Elizabeth our Queen, written by William Byrd for Queen Elizabeth I, remained in the repertoire of the Chapel Royal for several decades, the name being changed first to James and then to Charles.

      Most events of importance were planned months in advance, and the composer could usually count on being given adequate warning of a new commission. The meeting of Louis XII of France and Ferdinand V the Catholic of Castile at Savona in 1507, for which the French composer Antoine de Févin wrote a superb choral work, Gaude Francorum regia corona, was certainly not decided upon at short notice. Nor was the visit of Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici to Venice the result of a sudden decision, for Willaert had ample time to pen his solemn and sonorous motet Adriacos numero just as he did in the case of Haud aliter pugnans, in honour of King Ferdinand.

 A later Ferdinand, who became Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand III in 1637, commissioned two outstanding choral works by Monteverdi, both of which were published in his Madrigali guerrieri et amorosi (Madrigals of War and Love, 1638). Altri canti d'amor (Let Others Sing of Love) is a choral cantata for six voices, bass solo, and instrumental ensemble. The Emperor's military prowess is recounted in considerable detail, with choral imitations of swords clashing and guns firing. His qualities as a leader are also referred to in the ballet Movete al mio bel suon (Move to my Beautiful Sound), which extols him also as a just and equitable monarch in time of peace—although the Thirty Years' War did not in fact come to an end for several years. The text used by Monteverdi was a reworking of a poem which his friend the Italian poet Ottavio Rinuccini had originally written for Henry IV of France.

 Purcell, a composer of occasional music who was also a brilliant choral writer, enriched the history of music with a series of odes and welcome songs beginning in 1680 (Welcome, vicegerent of the mighty King) and extending until the year of his death, 1695, which saw the production of the ode for the Duke of Gloucester's birthday, Who can from joy refrain? Among the finest of the series, and especially notable for the noble vigour of the choruses, are the odes for Queen Mary's birthday and for the St. Cecilia's Day celebration, 1692.

      In France scores of comparable proportions were being written for such occasions as the baptism of the Dauphin (1688), for which Jean-Baptiste Lully set Pierre Perrin's Plaude laetare for double chorus and orchestra. Numerous court ceremonies or rejoicings called for large-scale performances of the Te Deum, Marc-Antoine Charpentier and Michel-Richard de Lalande, as well as Lully, providing music of the requisite pomp and proportions. Handel wrote two festive settings of the Te Deum for the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) and the British victory at Dettingen (1743). His royal odes worthily continue the Purcellian tradition, especially in the Ode for the Queen's Birthday (1713) for Queen Anne and in two wedding anthems, This is the Day (1734) for Princess Anne and Sing unto God (1736) for the Prince of Wales.

      Although J.S. Bach did not disdain to write occasional music, he followed Handel's practice in the Occasional Oratorio (a patriotic piece given in 1746) without ever knowing Handel, by reworking this kind of music to a new text. One of the cantatas Bach supplied for the election of the Leipzig town councillors was deftly changed into a cantata for the 12th Sunday after Trinity; another, destined for the same annual event, Preise, Jerusalem, den Herrn (Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem), BWV 119 (1723), has been reedited in modern times with a new text, in imitation of the composer's own practice.

      Haydn (Haydn, Joseph), in spite of his considerable duties as court conductor and composer, found time to write occasional works of considerable proportions, such as the two-hour birthday cantata, Applausus (1768), intended for the Abbot of Zwettl Stadt, Austria. His masses, even though they are liturgical, sometimes border also on the occasional because of their close ties with contemporary events, such as the Missa St. Bernardi de Offida (1796) written to celebrate the recent canonization of a Capuchin monk from Offida in Italy. An occasional choral composition of Beethoven's is his Kantate auf den Tod Kaiser Josephs II (1790; Cantata on the Death of the Emperor Joseph II).

      Berlioz (Berlioz, Hector), who had toyed with the idea of a large-scale choral and orchestral work to honour Napoleon, eventually had to abandon it but salvaged certain movements and incorporated them into his Te Deum (1849). His contemporary, Liszt (Liszt, Franz), was more deliberately productive in this area, enjoying consistently enthusiastic receptions for his choral works of an occasional nature, such as the St. Cecilia antiphon Cantantibus organis (for a Palestrina festival in Rome in 1880), the Missa solennis zur Einweihung der Basilika in Gran (1855; Mass for the Dedication of the Basilica at Gran); the Hungarian Coronation Mass for Emperor Francis Joseph I (1867), and a unique composition for male chorus and organ accompaniment, Slavimo Slavno Slaveni!, written in 1863 for the millenary of SS. Cyril and Methodius. Also noteworthy are his two cantatas in honour of Beethoven.

      The Czech composer Josef Förster (Förster, Josef Bohuslav) achieved widespread recognition in his own country as a master of choral style, and a telling example of this may be heard in the cantata Mortuis fratribus, written as a kind of requiem after the end of World War I. In Hungary, Zoltán Kodály (Kodály, Zoltán) went to texts of a 16th-century Hungarian poet, Michael Veg, for his Psalmus Hungaricus (first performed, 1923) celebrating the 50th anniversary of the union of the cities Buda and Pest. For the Paris Exhibition of 1937, the French composer Florent Schmitt (Schmitt, Florent) composed one of his finest choral works, the Fête de la lumière (Festival of Light).

      In 20th-century England the royal odes appeared less frequently than in the time of Purcell (Purcell, Henry) and Handel, yet there are a few choral works worthy of mention—Charles Stanford's (Stanford, Sir Charles Villiers) Welcome Song for the opening of the Franco-British Exhibition (1908), and Sir Arthur Bliss's (Bliss, Sir Arthur) Song of Welcome (1954) for the homecoming of Queen Elizabeth II. Britten's cantata St. Nicolas, for tenor solo, mixed chorus, strings, piano, organ, and percussion, was written for the centenary of Lancing College in 1948, and 12 years later he supplied a Cantata Academica for the quincentenary of the University of Basel. The score of this work has parts where alternative words may be used for celebrations at other institutions of learning.

Secular music
      Since the vast majority of secular vocal works of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance were written with soloists in mind rather than a chorus, this repertory will be dealt with in a later section of this article. A truly secular choral tradition does not really emerge until the 17th century, apart from dramatic works, which are mainly dealt with in the section on opera. Choruses were, however, supplied by way of incidental music to plays in the late 16th century; outstanding examples include the music written in 1585 by Andrea Gabrieli for the Oedipus Tyrannus of Sophocles and that of Giovanni Giacomo Gastoldi for Battista Guarini's play Il pastor fido (1590; The Faithful Shepherd). Choruses appear in 17th-century drama from time to time, as well as in masques and comparable extravaganzas. In the age of Lully, Marc-Antoine Charpentier, Purcell, and Matthew Locke, their position is clearly established. Secular cantatas tended for the most part to rely on solo voices, and when the chorus does make its appearance it sometimes consists only of three-part writing, as in Purcell's setting of Abraham Cowley's poem “If ever I more riches did desire.”

      The majority of Bach's (Bach, Johann Sebastian) secular cantatas call for solo voices only, in addition to the orchestra. Among those that do make full use of the chorus are Phoebus and Pan (Geschwinde, geschwinde, ihr wirbelnden Winde, BWV 201; 1731), the Birthday Cantata (Schleicht, spielende Wellen, BWV 206; 1733), and the Hunt Cantata (Was mir behagt, ist nur die muntre Jagd, BWV 208; 1716). The choral writing in Handel's secular cantatas and odes tends to be as massive and dignified as in the best of his oratorios, yet they are on the whole less frequently performed in the 20th century; as a group they do not fit easily into any single category. Athalia (1733) draws its inspiration and plot from the drama by the 17th-century French playwright Jean Racine; Il trionfo del tempo e del disinganno (1708; The Triumph of Time and Truth) is an allegory deriving from two of the composer's youthful Italianate compositions; Alexander's Feast (1736) and the Ode for St. Cecilia's Day (1739) both have texts by the 17th-century English poet Dryden; and the trilogy L'allegro, Il penseroso, ed il moderato (1740) is based on the poetry of another Englishman, John Milton.

      Those powerful and opposite poles, church and opera, monopolized choral writing for many years, and apart from isolated works of an occasional nature there is little in the truly secular field until Beethoven's Choral Fantasia (1808), an unusual work in nine movements, the first seven of which are a set of variations for piano and orchestra. Voices are introduced only in the eighth movement—solo voices at first, singing verses in praise of music by a minor German poet of the early 19th century named Christoph Kuffner, then the choir, so that the previously dominant instrumental texture is gradually and effectively modified to include richly deployed vocal sonorities that assist the work to a climax in the same way as in the later Choral Symphony.

      This gigantic work, the ninth and last symphony by Beethoven (Beethoven, Ludwig van), is planned in such a way that the choral finale is the only proper and logical way for it to end, although performances have been given where the finale has been omitted (using the scherzo as ending). The choral finale of the Ninth Symphony grows from the fertile soil of its predecessors and becomes a structural, thematic, and aesthetic necessity. It is notoriously difficult to perform, as Beethoven often seems to treat the singers like instruments.

      The influence of his Ninth Symphony on later symphonic literature was considerable. Beethoven's bravura choral writing sent its echoes to the outer limits of the Romantic era, and there were many subsequent essays in the integration of choral and orchestral forces. In La Damnation de Faust, Opus 24 (1846), Berlioz uses the weight of massed voices in an imaginative and dramatic way; in contrast, in his Roméo et Juliette symphony the voices tend to serve as an extra dash of colour to the orchestral palette. Brahms (Brahms, Johannes) made skillful use of the chorus in his Rhapsodie (1869) and Schicksalslied (Song of Destiny; 1871), and Schumann relied upon it throughout his Das Paradies und die Peri (Paradise and the Peri; 1843), a kind of secular oratorio based on the long poem Lalla Rookh (1817) by the Irish poet Thomas Moore. The best of both composers, chorally speaking, is to be found in their many settings of contemporaneous poems for mixed voices, male voice choir, or female choir. Much of this remains little known outside Germany, to the detriment of choral programs that would gain interest from one of Schumann's finely constructed double-choir compositions or from one of Brahms's sensitive settings of the poetry of Ludwig Uhland or Goethe.

      The technical demands of the choral sections in Antonín Dvořák's (Dvořák, Antonín) Svatební košile (The Spectre's Bride), a cantata written for the Birmingham Festival of 1885, are within the capabilities of the amateur choral societies for which it was intended, and in general his treatment of voices shows consideration as well as ingenuity. The macabre plot of this work is a narrative poem by a learned countryman of the composer's, the Czech poet Karel Erben, who achieved fame as a collector of folklore. Czech folk songs and tales exercised a powerful attraction for Dvořák throughout his life, and some of his best choral music consists of settings such as V přírodě (Amid Nature, 1882) and Trǐ sborg (Three Slovak Folksongs, 1877). Czech poetry gave rise to many remarkable compositions among the choral works of Janáček, perhaps the most memorable being the three male-voice choruses written between 1906 and 1909 that were based on poems by Petr Bezruč: Kantor Halfar (Teacher Halfar), Maryčka Magdanova, and Sedmdesát tisíc (The Seventy Thousand).

 In modern Germany and Austria, the most far-reaching attempt to bring together choral and orchestral forces in symphonic literature was that of Gustav Mahler. Unable for three years to find the solution to the problem of a finale for his second symphony, Mahler heard at the funeral of the eminent conductor-pianist Hans von Bülow the Resurrection Ode by the 18th-century German poet Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock. He decided to use this poem as a basis for a choral finale in the Symphony No. 2 in C Minor (1894). The use of massed voices for unaccompanied passages, such as the beginning of the ode, and later on with orchestral accompaniment and the collaboration of soprano and contralto soloists, affords ample evidence of Mahler's deep understanding of choral effects and techniques. The role of the choir is considerably less in his Symphony No. 3 in D Minor (1896), but it is nonetheless highly artistic and imaginative in the setting of the old popular verses Es sungen drei Engel (“Three angels were singing”). The Eighth Symphony (1906–07) marks the high point of symphonic choral music not only in Mahler's own output but in the entire history of the symphony as an art form. Instead of saving the chorus for climactic effects in the finale, as in his Second Symphony (and as in Beethoven's Ninth), Mahler integrates it from the very beginning into the complex and many-hued vocal and instrumental colours—eight soloists, a boys' choir, two large choirs of mixed voices able to project powerful antiphonal effects with orchestra and organ. This Symphony of a Thousand, as it is generally called, presents two texts of a complementary and opposing nature: the hymn Veni creator spiritus and the closing scene of Goethe's Faust. Mahler's (Mahler, Gustav) inspired use of his colossal forces to enhance, explain, and endow with added meaning the divine and human aspects of the two texts is without parallel. His achievement has not since been matched for sheer virtuosity and impact.

      It is true that Arnold Schoenberg's Gurrelieder (1900–11) calls for even larger orchestral forces than Mahler's Eighth Symphony, although it has never enjoyed as much success. Choirs have preferred other early works of Schoenberg or those of Anton von Webern.

      At the opposite end of the scale are the robust, tonal, and extrovert compositions of Paul Hindemith and also of Carl Orff, whose particular genius for setting classical and medieval texts may be seen in his Catulli Carmina (1943) and Carmina Burana (1937). Modern American choral music has been much enlivened by the contributions of Charles Ives (An Election composed in 1920), Randall Thompson, Roger Sessions, and many other eminent composers. Igor Stravinsky (Stravinsky, Igor), who spent the latter part of his life in the United States, retained his interest in choral writing and constantly sought new ways of presenting the sonorities of a massed group of voices. To his earlier Les Noces (1923; The Wedding), and Symphony of Psalms (1930) for chorus and orchestra, he added the Cantata on Old English Texts (1952) on anonymous English poems of the 15th and 16th centuries and A Sermon, A Narrative, and a Prayer (1961) which is not a liturgical work, though its text is taken from the New Testament.

      Twentieth-century English choral music for secular use finds one of its best advocates in Ralph Vaughan Williams (Vaughan Williams, Ralph), whose early setting of Toward the Unknown Region (first performed 1907) by the 19th-century American poet Walt Whitman was followed by A Sea Symphony (1910) based on material by the same poet. Frederick Delius also drew upon Whitman for his Sea Drift (1903) and upon the poems of the contemporary British poet Arthur Symons for his Songs of Sunset (1907). Britten's (Britten, Benjamin) genius for word setting is evident in his Hymn to St. Cecilia (1942) and A Ceremony of Carols (1942) and in the handling of the boys' choir and mixed chorus in his Spring Symphony (1949), which ends with a choral waltz combining syllabic effects and the Old English lyric Sumer is icumen in. Outstanding among contemporary Polish choral works are three compositions by Krzysztof Penderecki: Dimensions of Time and Silence for chorus and chamber orchestra (published 1961); Stabat Mater for three choirs (1962); and Psalms of David for choir and percussion (1958).

Madrigals (madrigal) and related forms
      A considerable amount of music sung by choirs in the 20th century is not really choral music at all, since it was conceived for performance by small groups of soloists and attains its fullest expression only through the individually projected personality of the solo voice. Assignment of these solo lines to a body of singers tends to neutralize this effect of personality, producing instead a weight of tone and an impression of superimposed dynamics and expression which, however carefully cultivated and disciplined, cannot surpass the kind of performance originally envisaged by the composer; yet a reasonable multiplication of voices does no harm to the texture as such, since the harmonies, the interweaving of parts, and the vocal spacing all remain constant. It is also true that a madrigal sung by 50 instead of by only five musicians will be more readily and rapidly understood by those directly involved because a massed performance of a five-part madrigal with 10 singers on each line is a more practical proposition than forming 10 separate consorts of five soloists. Individual voices, especially in amateur groups, may not possess the technique, the stamina, or the confidence to sustain a part on their own, but if they sing as a member of a group the likelihood is that they will achieve good results.

Development of the madrigal
      Madrigals were originally published for professional singers and for amateur singers of high standard. They were issued not in score, as is the 20th-century custom, but in the form of part books, each one of which contained only the music necessary for one line—soprano, alto, tenor, bass, or any intermediate voice. The quantity printed of each edition was generally modest, with the result that prices were high, and choral performance was ruled out for economic reasons as well as artistic ones. The development of modern methods of engraving and printing music, allied to the creation of a worldwide market for choral works, has brought about a situation directly opposed to that of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, whereby each singer now has a full score (or vocal score) that is less expensive than the part books printed in earlier times. In consequence, the choral performance of madrigals and related forms has become an economic possibility.

      One of the most important predecessors of the madrigal proper was the frottola, which flourished in Italy between 1490 and 1520. In its early stages, the frottola was a song with instrumental accompaniment, with the main melody and text in the uppermost part (usually in the soprano or alto range) and supporting harmonies below. These harmonies were so simple and functional that an entire line could be dispensed with when intabulations for voice and lute were made. Four-part harmony was thus reduced to three, though without any serious loss since the polyphonic element tended to be of minimal importance. In later collections of frottolas, however, a different technique appears: instead of the upper line alone being supplied with text, all four parts join in. These completely texted frottolas were certainly intended to be sung by four singers, possibly, though not necessarily, doubled by instruments; and they could even have been sung by a small chorus.

      Contemporary with the frottola were cognate forms such as the German lied, the French chanson, the Spanish villancico, and the English songs for voice and viols. All these began as accompanied songs, and all eventually followed the Italian fashion by dropping the instruments and substituting voices. This process was at first an obvious makeshift and can be detected as such because of the characteristically instrumental nature of the lower three parts, with numerous unvocal skips and contours. Words can be added to lines such as these, but they are often uncomfortable to sing because of the lack of conjunct movement and the paucity of breathing spaces. Occasionally, the added words appear only in one source, often a manuscript copy rather than a printed edition, the earlier sources on the other hand retaining the instrumental nature and function of the alto, tenor, and bass. The songs of Isaac (Isaac, Heinrich) provide clear examples of this gradual change, by which Tenorlieder (songs with the tune in the tenor) were transformed into part-songs by the addition of text to the instrumental lines. Some German composers, however, favoured the purely vocal or choral type of performance and made certain that all parts were texted.

      Similar tendencies can be seen in France, in Spain, and in England, where many of the court songs written during Henry VIII's reign have text in all voice parts. One of the best known of these, Passetyme with good cumpanye, is a part-song for three male voices, written in all probability by the monarch himself. As the century progressed, amateurs began to take an interest in the part-song, which was generally for four voices, and several composers helped to lay the foundation for the English madrigal school. It is worthy of note that Byrd, in his Psalmes, Sonets, & songs of Sadnes and pietie (published, 1588), underlaid text to every part but mentioned in his preface that the songs were “originally made for Instruments to expresse the harmonie, and one voyce to pronounce the dittie.”

The Italian madrigal
      The early development of the Italian madrigal was fostered as much by foreigners as by natives, and the considerable contributions made by the 16th-century Flemish composers Jacques Arcadelt, Philippe Verdelot, and Adriaan Willaert (Willaert, Adriaan) should not be underestimated. Although Willaert's settings of the works of the 14th-century Italian poet Petrarch and other serious Renaissance poets maintain an invariably high contrapuntal interest and are frequently suitable for choral performance, his compositions in the lighter, more homophonic vein, are well worth acquaintance.

      Cipriano de Rore, another Netherlander adopted by Italy, felt Willaert's influence strongly yet contrived to set new standards in the interpretation of poetry through music and also to encourage an artistic fusion of the contrapuntal and homophonic styles, using them alternately in one and the same composition according to the dictates of the poem. Even his early madrigals show a deep concern for intensity of expression, as in the Petrarch setting for five voices Hor che'l ciel e la terra. One of his finest four-part madrigals, Ancor che col partire, sets off pairs of voices one against the other. New heights of expression are reached in his descriptive madrigal Quando lieta sperai (text by the woman poet Emilia Anguissola), in which a sudden and disappointing change in the weather is perfectly mirrored in the music. The four-part Datemi pace, based on a Petrarch sonnet, favours homophony and looks eagerly forward to the bold chromaticism of Pomponio Nenna and Don Carlo Gesualdo (Gesualdo, Don Carlo, principe di Venosa). In his maturity, Rore produced a number of remarkably intense madrigals for the court of Parma. One of the finest is his setting of Dalle belle contrade, full of powerful contrasts of mood and colour underlining the interplay of direct and indirect speech.

      Further experiments in chromaticism were carried out by Nicola Vicentino, whose dramatic setting of O messaggi del cor, by the Renaissance poet Ludovico Ariosto, makes highly effective use of a mounting modulatory scheme (changes of key) to enhance the insistent repetition of the opening exclamations. His early madrigals exploit a more classical vein, without ignoring illustrative possibilities. His most typical and fascinating work is nevertheless to be found in such madrigals as Poichè il mio largo pianto or L'aura che il verde lauro in which Petrarch's verbal puns are suitably matched by Vicentino's harmonic ambiguities. Even more extreme is the Neapolitan composer Pomponio Nenna, whose striking and original harmonies must have made an indelible impression on his pupil Gesualdo. But whereas Gesualdo's chromaticism is often wayward and illogical, that of Nenna tends toward reason and reality. Several of the master's madrigals can be usefully compared with those of his noble pupil that were set to identical texts. Mercè, grido piangendo, for example, is treated by Nenna with an enviable intensity of expression heightened by tremendous contrasts of timbre and dynamic; and, although this pattern is followed in Gesualdo's setting (Book V, 1611), perhaps with even greater violence, the most favourable musical impression comes from Nenna. His four-part madrigal La mia doglia s'avvanza is startling by any standards, for the opening four bars move rapidly from G minor to F-sharp major, D minor, and C-sharp major.

      Gesualdo's preoccupation with poems containing diametrically opposed ideas and concepts finds its outlet in his last two books of madrigals (V and VI, both 1611). Itene, O miei sospiri not only looks forward in its manneristic treatment of vocal texture and harmony; it looks backward to classical procedures such as the interpolation of rests at the word sospiri (sighs), invented much earlier when the quarter-note rest was called suspirium. It would be wrong, however, to classify Gesualdo as an extremist on every occasion, for he could often write melting phrases of unforgettable beauty. He can even be witty at times, as in the madrigal about a venturesome mosquito (Ardita zanzaretta), which is somewhat in the vein of a vocal scherzo.

      Luca Marenzio (Marenzio, Luca), one of the most prolific among late 16th-century Italian madrigalists, achieved his high reputation not through experiment but rather through his remarkable sensitivity to words, both as single entities and as the basic elements of a poetic phrase. His balance between the two opposing claims of general mood and particular effect is always perfect, and the mastery of his vocal spacing is probably unrivalled, no matter whether four, five, or six parts are involved.

 At the court of Mantua (now Mantova, Italy), two important composers were active toward the very end of the 16th century—Giaches de Wert and Giovanni Giacomo Gastoldi. Each of them, in his own particular way, helped to renew and transform madrigal techniques even though the countless admirers of Marenzio felt that the pinnacles of perfection had already been reached. De Wert's contribution to the new madrigal was in some ways unusual and unexpected, for he approached the dramatic madrigal-poetry in a way that combined realism with clarity. He returned, in fact, to homophonic writing when it was necessary to emphasize a point, allowing the highest voice part to project the melody in what was essentially a kind of “choral recitative.” His pupil Monteverdi (Monteverdi, Claudio) published nine books of madrigals. From the sixth book onward continuo support becomes obligatory, and in consequence solo voices emerge from a choral background with tremendous dramatic effect, especially in the later works. The ballet Tirsi e Clori is rich in five-part choral writing of considerable elegance and resource, and the same is true (though in six-part texture) of Altri canti di Marte. Vago augelletto contrasts solo and choral writing until the last tutti, when all singers combine in a sonorous statement. Perhaps the greatest Monteverdi work of all is Hor che'l ciel e la terra, a six-part madrigal in two sections, with many solos and choral sections accompanied by violins and continuo. Monteverdi rarely surpassed the heights of emotional expressiveness found in this product of his maturity.

      At the time of the Italian madrigal's fullest flowering, German composers derived much inspiration from the south while still contriving to retain something of their earlier heritage. The result was often a kind of international style, greatly influenced by Orlando di Lasso (Lasso, Orlando di), who was as much at home writing Italian madrigals as he was with French chanson and German lieder. His pupils, the Austrian Leonhard Lechner and the German Johann Eccard, developed this style still further, as may be seen in the former's setting of Wohl kommt der Mai (Welcome May), a lively and optimistic May song full of expressive harmonic colour. The setting by Lasso of the same text is calmer, more homophonic; yet its apparent simplicity and unostentatiousness hides a subtle and skillful mastery of vocal art.

      In his five-part lieder, Lasso makes the most of contrasting duets and trios very frequently, as in Es jagt ein Jäger a hunting song which serves as an excuse for lightly concealed amatory dalliance. Hans Leo Hassler was obviously fired by Lasso's lead in the sheer variety and latent possibilities of secular vocal style, and much of his best work was done in the dialogue form. A peak of brilliance and energy is reached in his eight-part dialogue for two opposing choral bodies, Mein Lieb will mit mir kriegen (My Love Wants to Wage a War), which might be described as a musically stylized battle of the sexes, with blows given and taken freely until the two groups combine to sing of final reconciliation and contentment.

Cultivation of the dialogue
      Dialogues in this vein were also cultivated successfully by Christoph Demantius, whose anthology of 1609 contains examples of memorable beauty and charm. In his Jungfrew, ich het ein' Bitt' an euch (Maiden, I have a Request for You), Demantius allows one four-part choir to represent the girl and the other the boy in a conversation full of innocent affection and honest courtship, the two groups joining at the end to sing goodnight. In his five-part lieder, Demantius sometimes displays a learned touch in his imitative counterpoint, although the general impression is one of Italianate elegance rather than of studious endeavour. It is worthy of note that many of his lieder are strophically conceived, and in consequence he printed the verses complete in each voice part, a feature which has been unfortunately obscured in the modern edition of his works. One of the finest of his lieder is Lieblich ich hörte singen, which tells of the Sirens' song and reproduces its allegedly hypnotic effect by means of flowing melismata in the upper voices.

      The dialogue, considered as an art form of the Renaissance and Baroque eras, contains many choral elements. In its earliest form, as exemplified by the dialogues of Willaert, seven voices is the norm, and the texture is not yet clearly separated into two groups. Instead there is a kaleidoscopic impression caused by the skillful deployment of varied groupings. By the time of Andrea Gabrieli, a dialogue such as the popular and erotic Tirsi morir volea calls for a trio of high voices representing the girl and a quartet of deeper voices for the man. The amorous interchanges are carefully allocated to the individual groups, and there is no attempt to join them together until the very end. But in a typical dialogue by the younger Gabrieli (Gabrieli, Giovanni), Dormiva dolcemente, there is no relationship between direct and indirect speech as far as the music is concerned. The setting is in this sense abstract, and the beauty of the dialogue lies in its purely musical architecture and expression.

      One of the greatest masters of the French dialogue was Orlando di Lasso, who set two poems of the 16th-century French poet Pierre de Ronsard in eight-part, double-choir compositions of exceptional quality. Que dis-tu, que fais-tu? (1576; What Are You Saying, What Are You Doing?) plays off one group against another in a series of sympathetic exchanges culminating in a final chorus praising the constancy of the lovebirds. Another masterpiece of this kind is O doux parler (1571), in which the interlocutors are human and the approach of both poet and composer more intensely passionate.

The French chanson and English madrigal
      The French chanson, one of the most popular secular vocal genres in the 16th century, is essentially in miniature form. Unlike the Italian madrigals, which were sometimes composed in sequences of three, four, or more sections, French chansons tend to remain individual in the sense that they are self-contained, epigrammatic, and brief. It is partly for this reason that they have been less explored by 20th-century choral groups, although the language factor must also be taken into consideration.

      English madrigals, because of their relatively innocuous texts and their moderate degree of difficulty, have always been a staple diet of choral societies and to an even greater extent of chamber choruses. The 16th- and 17th-century madrigals of William Byrd, Thomas Weelkes, John Wilbye, Thomas Morley, and their contemporaries and successors are too well-known to need elaborate description and too numerous to permit individual discussion. It is nevertheless true that although this repertory may today be considered as generally choral, certain madrigals are better reserved for performance by soloists. The criterion for making such a choice lies often with the text rather than with the music, for a certain degree of personal intensity in the words demands a corresponding projection of individual lines and their message. On the other hand, others are eminently suitable for choral performance.

      After the vogue of the madrigal had disappeared, that of the glee eventually took its place, flourishing from the early 18th century to the middle of the 19th. Like the madrigal, the glee was originally intended for solo voices, but choral performances were by no means infrequent. The word glee, derived from the Anglo-Saxon word for music (gligge) does not necessarily imply a composition of a cheerful nature, and many of the best glees in fact express solemn or poetic themes. Samuel Webbe's Glorious Apollo and R.J.S. Stevens's Ye spotted snakes provide very different, though typical, examples of this vocal genre. Tonality is for the most part simple and unaffected, harmony is robust, and the span of musical thought necessarily brief.

Denis William Stevens

Additional Reading
For a general survey of song literature, see Denis Stevens (ed.), A History of Song (1960); and “Song,” in Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 5th ed., vol. 7 (1954); for discussions of early chants and songs to 1640, with bibliographies and editions: The New Oxford History of Music, vol. 2–4 (1954–68); for problems in text setting: the introductions to An Elizabethan Song Book, ed. by Noah Greenberg, W.H. Auden, and Chester Kallman (1955); The Ring of Words: An Anthology of Song Texts, ed. by Philip L. Miller (1963); and The Penguin Book of Lieder, ed. by S.S. Prawer (1964); also Archibald T. Davison, Words and Music (1954); Vincent Duckles and Franklin B. Zimmerman, Words to Music (1967); Northrop Frye (ed.), Sound and Poetry (1957), esp. ch. 1, “Words into Music: The Composer's Approach to the Text,” by Edward T. Cone; and Jack Stein, “Was Goethe Wrong About the Nineteenth-Century Lied?” PMLA, 77:232–239 (1962). For a discussion of the concert aria, see Paul Hamburger, “The Concert Arias,” in The Mozart Companion, ed. by H.C. Robbins Landon and Donald Mitchell (1956). Manfred F. Bukofzer, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Music (1950) and Music in the Baroque Era (1947), are both well-established classics, the first volume being of particular importance since it discusses the beginnings of choral music. Alfred Einstein, The Italian Madrigal, 3 vol. (1949, reprinted 1971), is a detailed account of the entire history of the Italian madrigal. The third volume contains hitherto unpublished compositions, Edmund H. Fellowes, English Cathedral Music from Edward VI to Edward VII, 2nd ed. rev. (1945), and The English Madrigal Composers, 2nd ed. (1948), are regarded as classics and are well suited to the general reader as well as to the professional musician. Frank L. Harrison, Music in Medieval Britain (1958), is the most thorough account of church music in Britain from the earliest times up to the middle of the 16th century. Peter Le Huray, Music and the Reformation in England, 1549–1660 (1967), provides especially good coverage for this period. Gustave Reese, Music in the Renaissance, rev. ed. (1959), is the finest single-volume study of music from the time of Dufay up to that of Byrd. Denis W. Stevens, Tudor Church Music (1961), is a study of forms and styles in 16th-century church music. See also Nicholas Temperley, The Music of the English Parish Church, 2 vol. (1979); and Stephen Daw, The Music of Johann Sebastian Bach, the Choral Works (1981).

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  • Music of the Mass — • Article covers exclusively the texts of the Mass (not seasonal) which receive a musical treatment Catholic Encyclopedia. Kevin Knight. 2006. Music of the Mass     Music of the Mass …   Catholic encyclopedia

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