choral favorites

I love art.  

I love the Fine Arts... writing, dancing, theater, painting, sculpting.   

And I love the not-so-Fine Arts... decorating, refinishing furniture, flower arranging.

But my first love is music.  Boy, do I love good music.

Something about it just sweeps me off my feet to another place where time disappears and I forget to breathe.  (You think I'm kidding.)

I realized after my last post that I don't write much about music.  I have a degree in music, and I remember in college trying to write papers about music.  Errrr... and just how am I supposed to do that?  I think that is why I stray away from writing about it on the blog.  How do I convey to an internet audience something that cannot be justified with words?

So with that said... this is for you, all you musicians.  Here is a montage of youtube clips (because that's the best I can do on here) of some of my favorite choral pieces ever.

Close your eyes, and listen to them with all your senses.  

"Sicut Cervus" by Palestrina.  It is set to Psalm 42... The same text as "As the Deer," only in Latin and written 400 years ago.  How cool is that?!?

(I normally wouldn't pick a clip that doesn't play the song in its entirety, but this is the St. Olaf choir, and they are wooooonderful.  I don't really know what they are doing in this clip, but I don't care.  I would give a kidney to jump through the computer and sing with them.  So enjoy.)

Next, is "Holy Radiant Light."  If you went to Harding, you know this oldie, but goody.  

To lighten things up a bit...  from "The Gondoliers" by Gilbert and Sullivan.  The piano accompaniment is just as much fun as the vocals.

"Innsbruck, Ich muss dich lassen" as sung by the King Singers, and as in Innsbruck, Germany if you have ever been there.


"Jesus Christ, The Apple Tree."  Wow.
 

Moses Hogan's "The Battle of Jericho"


"Give Me Jesus."  This song expresses so much in so few words.
"Give me Jesus.  You may have all the rest.  Give me Jesus."

"Worthy is the Lamb" (and the Amens!).  If it is good enough for Handel to finish on, it's good enough for me.