Episode 5

Miniature Masterpieces

Top 10 Miniature Masterpieces

These are standalone choral works with, or without an orchestra, that demonstrate the craftsmanship and mastery of the composer, but in 8 minutes or less. This list does not contain excerpts from larger works or any compositions longer than 8 minutes.

1. Ave verum corpus – Wolfgang A. Mozart (1756 – 1791)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed more than 600 works, many of which are acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, operatic, and choral music. He is considered among the greatest classical composers of all time, and his influence on Western music is profound. Ludwig van Beethoven composed his early works in the shadow of Mozart, and Joseph Haydn wrote: "posterity will not see such a talent again in 100 years".

Ave verum corpus – Wolfgang A. Mozart Academy and Chorus of St Martin in the Fields, Sir Neville Marriner

2. Mitten wir im Leben sind – Felix Mendelssohn (1809 – 1847)

Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy was a German composer, pianist, organist and conductor of the early Romantic period. Mendelssohn's compositions include symphonies, concertos, piano music, organ music and chamber music. His best-known works include the overture and incidental music for A Midsummer Night's Dream, the Italian Symphony, the Scottish Symphony, the oratorio St. Paul, the oratorio Elijah, the overture The Hebrides, the

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mature Violin Concerto and the String Octet. The melody for the Christmas carol "Hark! The Herald Angels Sing" is also his. Mendelssohn's Songs Without Words are his most famous solo piano compositions.

Mitten wir im Leben sind - Felix Mendelssohn Chamber Choir of Europe, Nicol Matt, conductor

3. O magnum mysterium – Tomás Luis de Victoria (1548 – 1611)

An accomplished composer, organist, and singer, Tomás Luis de Victoria is one of the most well-known composers of the Counter-Reformation (the period of Catholic resurgence initiated as a response to the Protestant Reformation). He exclusively wrote sacred music.

O magnum mysterium – Tomás Luis de Victoria Cambridge Singers, John Rutter, conductor

4. Ave Maria – Giuseppe Verdi (1813 – 1901)

Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi was an Italian opera composer. He was born near Busseto to a provincial family of moderate means, and developed a musical education with the help of a local patron. Verdi came to dominate the Italian opera scene after the era of Vincenzo Bellini, Gaetano Donizetti, and Gioachino Rossini, whose works significantly influenced him.

Ave Maria – Giuseppe Verdi SWR Vokalensemble Stuttgart, Marcus Creed

5. Water Night – Eric Whitacre (born 1970)

Eric Whitacre is an American composer, conductor, and speaker known for his choral, orchestral, and wind ensemble music. In March 2016, he was appointed as Los Angeles Master Chorale's first artist-in-residence at the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

Water Night – Eric Whitacre BYU Singers, Ronald Staheli

6. Te Deum – Franz J Haydn (1732 – 1809)

Franz Joseph Haydn was an Austrian composer of the Classical period. Haydn spent much of his career as a court musician for a wealthy family at their remote estate. Until the later part of his

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life, this isolated him from other composers and trends in music so that he was, as he put it, "forced to become original." He was a friend and mentor of Mozart, a tutor of Beethoven, and the older brother of composer Michael Haydn.

Te Deum – Franz J. Haydn BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, and the BBC Singers, Sir Andrew Davis

7. Agnus Dei (Adagio for Strings) – Samuel Barber (1910 – 1981)

Samuel Barber was an American composer of orchestral, opera, choral, and piano music. He is one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century. His Adagio for Strings has earned a permanent place in the concert repertory of orchestras. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music twice: for his opera Vanessa and for the Concerto for Piano and Orchestra.

Agnus Dei (Adagio for Strings) – Samuel Barber Dale Warland Singers, Dale Warland

8. Veni sancta Spiritus – Wolfgang A. Mozart (1756 – 1791)

(see above)

Veni sancta Spiritus – Wolfgang A. Mozart Collegium Instrumentale Brugense

9. Three Shakespeare Songs – Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872 – 1958)

Ralph Vaughan Williams was an English composer. His works include operas, ballets, chamber music, secular and religious vocal pieces and orchestral compositions including nine symphonies, written over sixty years. Strongly influenced by Tudor music and English folk-song, his output marked a decisive break in British music from its German-dominated style of the 19th century.

Three Shakespeare Songs - Full Fathom Five – Ralph Vaughan Williams Netherlands Chamber Choir, John Alldis

Three Shakespeare Songs - The Cloud Capp'd Towers – Ralph Vaughan Williams Netherlands Chamber Choir, John Alldis

Three Shakespeare Songs - Over Hill, Over Dale – Ralph Vaughan Williams Netherlands Chamber Choir, John Alldis

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10. The Battle of Jericho – Moses Hogan (1957 – 2003)

Moses Hogan was an American composer and arranger of choral music. He is best known for his settings of spirituals. Hogan was a pianist, conductor, and arranger of international renown. His works are celebrated and performed by high school, college, church, community, and professional choirs today. He is known for single-handedly introducing spirituals into the standard chorale repertoire. Over his lifetime, he published 88 arrangements for voice, eight of which were solo pieces.

The Battle of Jericho – Moses Hogan The Moses Hogan Chorale

Out of the Cut

Komm, Jesus Komm – Johann S. Bach (1685 – 1750)

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer and musician of the Baroque period. He is known for instrumental compositions such as the Brandenburg Concertos and the Goldberg Variations, and for vocal music such as the St Matthew Passion and the Mass in B minor. Since the 19th century Bach Revival he has been generally regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time.

Komm, Jesus Komm – Johann S. Bach Collegium 1704, Václav Luks

Cantique de Jean Racine – Gabriel Fauré (1845 – 1024)

Gabriel Fauré was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th- century composers. Some of his best-known works are his Pavane, Requiem, Sicilienne, nocturnes for piano and the songs "Après un rêve" and "Clair de lune".

Cantique de Jean Racine – Gabriel Fauré The Cambridge Singers and Members of the City of London Sinfonia, John Rutter

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Sure on this Shining Night – Morten Lauridsen (born 1943)

Morten Lauridsen is an American composer. A National Medal of Arts recipient, he was composer-in-residence of the Los Angeles Master Chorale from 1994 to 2001 and has been a professor of composition at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music for more than 40 years. In 2006, Lauridsen was named an "American Choral Master" by the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2007 he received the National Medal of Arts from the President in a White House ceremony, "for his composition of radiant choral works combining musical beauty, power and spiritual depth that have thrilled audiences worldwide".

Sure on this Shining Night – Morten Lauridsen The Singers – Minnesota Choral Artists, Matthew Culloton (Morten Lauridsen, piano)

Hodie Christus natus est – Giovanni da Palestrina (1525 – 1594)

Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina was an Italian Renaissance composer of sacred music and the best-known 16th-century representative of the Roman School of musical composition. He had a long-lasting influence on the development of church and secular music in Europe, especially on the development of counterpoint, and his work is considered the culmination of Renaissance polyphony.

Hodie Christus natus est – Giovanni da Palestrina The Sixteen, Harry Christophers

Pilgrim’s Hymn – Stephen Paulus (1949 – 2014)

Stephen Paulus was a Grammy winning American composer, best known for his operas and choral music. His best-known piece is his 1982 opera The Postman Always Rings Twice, one of several operas he composed for the Opera Theatre of St. Louis. He received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and Guggenheim Foundation and won the prestigious Kennedy Center Friedheim Prize. He was commissioned by such notable organizations as the Minnesota Opera, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Opera Theatre of Saint Louis, the Saint Louis Chamber Chorus, the American Composers Orchestra, the Dale Warland Singers, the Harvard Glee Club and the New York Choral Society.

Pilgrim’s Hymn – Stephen Paulus Dale Warland Singers, Dale Warland

Da pacem Domine – Arvo Pärt (born 1935)

Arvo Pärt is an Estonian composer of classical and religious music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has

Page 5 of 7 worked in a minimalist style that employs his self-invented compositional technique, tintinnabuli. Pärt's music is in part inspired by Gregorian chant. His most performed works include Fratres, Spiegel im Spiegel, and Für Alina. From 2011 to 2018, Pärt was the most performed living composer in the world, and the second most performed in 2019. The Arvo Pärt Centre, in Laulasmaa, was opened to the public in 2018.

Da pacem Domine – Arvo Pärt Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir/Paul Hillier

Te Deum – William Walton (1902 – 1983)

Sir William Walton was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several classical genres and styles, from film scores to opera. His best-known works include Façade, the cantata Belshazzar's Feast, the Viola Concerto, the First Symphony, and the British coronation anthems Crown Imperial and Orb and Sceptre.

Te Deum – William Walton Choir of Westminster Abbey

Ubi Caritas – Maurice Duruflé (1902 – 1986)

Maurice Duruflé was a French composer, organist, and teacher. In 1947 he completed probably the most famous of his few pieces: the Requiem op. 9, for soloists, choir, organ, and orchestra. He published only a handful of works and often continued to edit and change pieces after publication. He suffered severe injuries in a car accident in 1975, and as a result, gave up performing. He died in 1986, aged 84, never having fully recovered from the accident.

Ubi caritas – Maurice Duruflé Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Chorus, Robert Shaw

Dies Irae – Z. Randall Stroope (born 1953)

Z. Randall Stroope is an American composer, conductor, and lecturer. He has published more than 165 works. He serves as the Director of Choral and Vocal Studies at Oklahoma State University. He also is head of the Oklahoma State University Concert Chorale, Chamber Choir, and Women's Choir. Before his appointment to OSU, Stroope held similar positions at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey and at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. As a conductor, he regularly appears nationally and internationally in such venues as: Carnegie Hall, Chicago Orchestra Hall, Sopra Minerva (Rome), and the Kennedy Center.

Dies Irae – Z. Randall Stroope Page 6 of 7

Westlake Boys' High School – Voicemale, David Squire

Locus iste – Anton Bruckner (1824 – 1896)

Anton Bruckner was an Austrian composer, organist, and music theorist best known for his symphonies, masses, Te Deum and motets. Bruckner's compositions helped to define contemporary musical radicalism, owing to their dissonances, unprepared modulations, and roving harmonies.

Locus iste – Anton Bruckner The Sixteen, Harry Christophers

Jesus Child – John Rutter (born 1945)

John Rutter is an English composer, conductor, editor, arranger, and record producer, mainly of choral music. Rutter's compositions are chiefly choral, and include Christmas carols, anthems and extended works such as the Gloria, the Requiem and the Magnificat.

Jesus Child – John Rutter The Cambridge Singers, City of London Sinfonia, John Rutter

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