Carol Cantata III by Robert Russell Bennett Robert Russell Bennett (1894-1981) is probably best known as orchestrator and arranger for Broadway musicals—as many as 300 of them!– including “Showboat”, “South Pacific”, “My Fair Lady”, and “The Sound of Music”. A characteristically outspoken man –”Nobody asked for my opinion, and maybe nobody wants it… They’re going…

Carols and Lullabies by Conrad Susa Conrad Susa was resident composer for the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, and served as dramaturge for the O’Neill Center in Connecticut. He has also written numerous scores for documentary films and PBS television productions; choral and instrumental works; and operas (Transformations, Black River, The Love of Don…

Carmina Burana Carl Orff was born into a military family in Munich in 1895. While he followed his paternal heritage by serving in the Kaiser’s forces during World War I, his real love was music– piano, organ, and cello, and some composing, even as a youth. A Bavarian to the core, he spent most of…

A Christmas Garland by Conrad Susa Conrad S. Susa’s eclectic musical career belies his Carnegie-Mellon and Juilliard training, where, he says, his notable teachers included P. D. Q. Bach (!).. The Pennsylvania-born Susa, 68, was a musical director on Broadway in the 1960’s, wrote playscripts for the Eugene O’Neill Center in Connecticut, was staff pianist…

Psalms of David Psalms of David by Robert Hanson (1986, rev. 1998) Psalms of David was commissioned by the Elgin Choral Union and the First Congregational Church of Elgin in 1985 to commemorate the 150th anniversaries of the church and the City of Elgin. The work was first performed in April of 1986 by the…

Mass of the Children by John Rutter About the Composer John M. Rutter is a well-respected English conductor, editor, arranger, publisher, and, most especially, composer. His compositions are primarily choral; he is well known for his many Christmas carols, one of which, the immensely popular “Shepherd’s Pipe Carol”, was written in 1963, when he was…

The Many Moods of Christmas, Suite 1 by Robert Shaw and Richard Russell Bennett Beginning in the 1960’s, the late Robert Shaw and the noted arranger Robert Russell Bennett collaborated on a series of Christmas medleys, all of them pastiches of carols and seasonal tunes. This is the first in that series, and is new…

Songs from The tender Land by Aaron Copland Aaron Copland would probably be a shoo-in as America’s greatest 20th-century classical composer. Born in Brooklyn in late 1900 to Russian-Lithuanian immigrants, he learned piano from an older sister, and learned hard work in his parents’ department store, downstairs from their apartment. He was composing before he…

The Student Prince by Sigmund Romberg Most authorities agree that `operetta’ existed as a transitional phase for about 100 years, roughly from 1840 to 1940. It was fledged from grand opera, and was ultimately transformed into musical theater, a less structured medium. The Viennese dramas of Lehar and Johann Strauss Jr. were the acme of…

Messiah by Georg Friderich Handel Everybody knows all about Messiah. Or at least everybody thinks they do: How Georg Friderich Handel, 56, born in Halle, Germany, and then a resident of London, England, dashed off the 53 pieces that make up Messiah– Spicker, editor of the popular 1912 Schirmer’s edition, says it was done between…