Table of Contents

Introduction
A Word to Nonbelievers--and Believers
Adams: Harmonium
Bach Introduction
Bach: The Passions
Bach: Saint John Passion
Bach: Saint Matthew Passion
Bach: Magnificat
Bach: Mass in B minor
Beethoven: Missa solemnis
Berlioz: Requiem
Brahms Introduction
Brahms: A German Requiem
Brahms: The Shorter Choral Works
Brahms: Gesang der Parzen (Song of the Fates)
Brahms: N:anie (Threnody)
Brahms: Schicksalslied (Song of Destiny)
Britten: War Requiem
Cherubini: Requiem in C minor
Dallapiccola: Canti di prigonia (Songs of Imprisonment)
Dvorák: Stabat mater
Elgar: The Dream of Gerontius
Fauré: Requiem
Handel: Messiah
Handel-Mozart: Messiah
Haydn: Introduction
Haydn: The Oratorios
Haydn: The Creation
Haydn: The Seasons
Haydn: Harmoniemesse (Wind-Band Mass)
Honegger: Le Roi David (King David)
Janácek: Glagolilic Mass
Kodály: Psalmus hungaricus
Mendelssohn: Elias (Elijah)
Mozart Introduction
Mozart: Mass in C minor
Mozart: Requiem
Orff: Carmina burana
Rachmaninoff: The Bells
Schmidt: Das Buch mit dieben Siegelm (The Book With Seven Seals)
Sessions: When Lilacs Last in the Door-Yard Bloom'd
Stravinsky Introduction
Stravinsky: Canticum acrum
Stravinsky: Persephone
Stravinsky: Requiem Canticles
Stravinsky: Symphony of Psalms
Stravinsky: The Wedding
Tippett: A Child of Our Time
Vaughan Williams Introduction
Vaughan Williams: Sancta Civitas
Vaughan Williams: A Sea Symphony
Verdi: Requiem
Walton: Belshazzar's Feast

About the Author

Michael Steinberg has taught at several universities and conservatories, was music critic of The Boston Globe, has contributed to numerous periodicals, and served as program annotator for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, and New York Philharmonic. He lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Reviews

"What sets Steinberg's writing apart is its appealing mixture of impregnable authority (he knows this music) and purely personal asides (by the end of the book, we know this man). Choral Masterworks can be read by anybody, from a professional musician to any young listener newly braced by the stoic pessimism of the Brahms 'German Requiem.'" --Washington Post Book World