# Recommend me longer works for bass or baritone soloist?



## Spectrum (Mar 12, 2009)

Hi, all!

I am looking for some longer works for a baritone or bass singer. NOT individual songs or arias from operas or oratorios, but coherent single works or (at least) song cycles. Also, not works with a bunch of different soloists of different voice types.

Some examples include:

* Havergal Brian - Symphony no 5 _The Wine of Summer_ (for baritone and orchestra)
* Rued Langgaard - Symphony no 15 _The Sea Storm_ (for bass-baritone, male chorus and orchestra) 
* Dmitri Shostakovich - _The Execution of Stepan Razin_ (cantata for bass, chorus and orchestra) (I don't like this, but it still counts as the _kind_ of thing I am seeking)
* Ralph Vaughan Williams - _Songs of Travel_ (for baritone and piano)
* William Walton - _Belshazzar's Feast_ (for baritone, chorus and orchestra)

Also acceptable are recordings by a bass or baritone of works originally written for another voice type. Examples include:

* Hector Berlioz - _Les nuits d'été_, sung by José van Dam 
* Gustav Mahler - _Kindertotenlieder_, sung by Bryn Terfel

Does anyone have some good recommendations? Thanks!


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

There's Oresteïa by Xenakis which is for baritone, chorus and orchestra which you might like to check out.


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## Pip (Aug 16, 2013)

Richard Strauss Talleifer


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## schigolch (Jun 26, 2011)

"Banalités" is a small song cycle by French composer Francis Poulenc. He wrote it for his long-time friend and collaborator, the baritone Pierre Bernac. I'm quite fond of it, and perhaps can be of interest for you:


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Schubert Wintereisse has a baritone option.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Silvestrov - Silent Songs for baritone and piano.


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## Dirge (Apr 10, 2012)

Frank MARTIN: 6 Monologe aus »Jedermann« (1943/49)
:: Rehfuss & Martin [Jecklin] _baritone & piano_
:: Fischer-Dieskau, Martin/BPO [DG] _baritone & orchestra_




 (disc 5, tracks 14-19)

Here's a note from the composer:

"When the baritone Max Christmann asked me in 1943 to compose a song cycle for his voice, I looked unsuccessfully for a long time for a poem which could energize me about the project. And when it occurred to me to leaf through the text of Hofmannsthal's _Jedermann_, I did not have a lot of hope that I would find something suitable in the play for a song cycle. I was lucky, however, and was able to extract six monologues [Martin's term, not Hofmannsthal's], which were so complete in themselves that they summarized in a moving way the psychological and mental development of the main character-beginning with the creature's fear of death up to his perfect surrender in trust in forgiveness, his gradual detachment from earthly things, and his ascent in fear and sorrow into the spiritual world. In the face of such themes, I could only have been silent if the poet had not led me, if he had not taught me that attitude of total simplicity and humility to which he took himself; in his octosyllable verses, the poet not only lets the simple language of age-old human fears resound but also the language of the Gospel of Redemption which teaches us through love. He opens the curtain just far enough that the drama of death and life, of sin and healing in the spirit of each listener, can unroll itself. Through the search for appropriate music to set this simple and meaningful language, I became even more aware of the wonderful construction of this dramatic poem, from its deep psychological understanding to the perfect beauty of language and form and the pure rhythm of the verse, so supple in their wonderful monotony and so truly medieval."


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## sospiro (Apr 3, 2010)

Schubert: Schwanengesang


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

Mendelssohn's _Paulus_: the main character is a bass.
What a fine work, too. I've grown to prefer it over _Elias_, even!


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## Spectrum (Mar 12, 2009)

Thanks a lot for the suggestions, guys and girls. I will check them out.


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## ptr (Jan 22, 2013)

Spectrum said:


> * Dmitri Shostakovich - _The Execution of Stepan Razin_ (cantata for bass, chorus and orchestra) (I don't like this, but it still counts as the _kind_ of thing I am seeking)


Even if You don't like this, there are more works for this configuration by Shostakovich, the Thirteenth Symphony, Suite on Verses of Michelangelo Op. 145, Anti-Formalist Rayok.. Then there's Modest Mussorgsky's "Songs and Dances of death, Fred Delius "Sea Drift", Gerald Finzi "Let us garlands bring, Op. 18",

/ptr


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