# Vocalizations



## mud (May 17, 2012)

I was mentioning that Ravel and Villa-Lobos each composed a vocal work that is purely musical, without verbal meaning. Do you know of any others, or instrumental pieces that were arranged for vocals, without words?


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## Jeremy Marchant (Mar 11, 2010)

Giles Swayne's _Cry _for 28 singers runs 75 minutes and only uses two real words amongst a wide range of vocalisations.

And Berio's _Visage _for electronically treated voice uses only one word [_parole_, Italian for _words_] and that only on two occasions


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## SuperTonic (Jun 3, 2010)

The Neptune movement from Holst's The Planets has a womens choir that sings without words.
And then there is Rachmaninoff's Vocalise. It has been arranged for many different combinations of instruments, but it was originally written for soprano or tenor with no text and piano.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Wordless female chorus in the third of Debussy's Nocturnes; III. Sirènes

Wordless full chorus in Ravel's full length (0riginal) Daphnis et Chloe (This is one of the most outstanding uses of choir with orchestra, in that the choir is treated equally as an additional 'section' of the orchestra.)

Stravinsky's early and somewhat folk idiomatic 'Pastoral.'

Ralph Vaughan-Williams ~ Sinfonia Antarctica - wordless soprano solo, (I won't rely on memory but I believe also a women's chorus)

With the exception of one brief spoken phrase in classical Greek, wordless soprano through much of the Russian composer Nikolai Korndorf's orchestral "Hymn III."


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## moody (Nov 5, 2011)

Gliere's Concerto For Coloratura and Orchestra, op.82. Gretchaninov's Lullaby.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Rzewski's piece 'commemorating' Oscar Wilde's prison term is essentially wordless.


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## mud (May 17, 2012)

Interesting music, I remembered Sumera's concerto per voci e strumenti. I suppose it doesn't have words, although it does sound like they are calling for a lost kitty cat.


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## sabrina (Apr 26, 2011)

Here you find Rachmaninov Vocalise:
Haunting beautiful!


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## GoneBaroque (Jun 16, 2011)

Adhering to the rule of threes here are

Vocalise etude by Olivier Messiaen






Sorabji's Vocalise for piano and soprano






and Vocalise for soprano, cello and piano by Andre Previn


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