A review of a book that will be valuable to conductors, choral directors, orchestra and opera librarians, and anyone planning programs with orchestra.
John Yaffé and David Daniels: “Arias, Ensembles & Choruses: An Excerpt Finder for Orchestras.”
Publisher: Lanham, MD. : Scarecrow Press, ©2012, xxiii, 523 pages. Hardback $109.00
“AEC” was compiled for those who prepare programs that include voice and orchestra. It is thoroughly researched, vetted by editorial experts, and indexed in every conceivable category. Not only opera and orchestra librarians, but every conductor and artistic advisor needs to add this indispensable volume to their nearest reference shelf.
This newest book in the Music Finders series published by Scarecrow Press, such as Daniels – Orchestral Music: A Handbook, Fourth Edition; Manning – Orchestral “Pops” Music: A Handbook; and Meyer – Chamber Orchestra and Ensemble Repertoire: A Catalog of Modern Music, represent a valuable contribution to our reference repertoire.
Yaffé and Daniels have used their expertise as conductors, and their passion for musicology, to bring to light important details on more than 1,750 excerpts from more than 450 works from opera, operetta, oratorio and musicals.
Extensive and fascinating notes are included for many entries, such as “This duet contains a significant solo part for the principal violin” or “In solo concert performance, one generally stops at the B-major chord at fig. [94]” or “In solo concert performance cuts are made in both sections reducing the duration to 6 minutes.” Each entry contains information about language, voice type, timings, excerpt location (in both the full scores and vocal scores), instrumentation (in the standard Daniels format), start and stops, cuts, keys, and sources of orchestral materials for the excerpt.
This book will be a great help also to those choruses that are performing with an orchestra and need to find matching material, and it will go a long way toward solving the problems that librarians and conductors face in those dreaded “Gala” programs.
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