Sacred and Secular Vocal Music (Full Score, hardback)

Gluck Sacred and Secular Vocal Music (Full Score, hardback)
for Soloists and Orchestra

This volume offers a collection of individual sacred and secular vocal pieces that have come down to us under the name of Christoph Willibald Gluck.  The selection of the works is premised on the assumed and probable authenticity of the compositions established on the basis of the transmission and the ascertained contexts of origin.  The first part, “Sacred Vocal Music”, includes the only surviving work by Gluck on a liturgical text, the psalm setting “De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine”, while the second part, “Secular Vocal Works”, comprises nine pieces on secular texts deriving from varying contexts of origin.  On the one hand these are arias which can be attributed to specific opera productions Gluck was involved with, on the other hand, these are “Einlage-Arien” (insert arias) and individual pieces composed for concert performances.  The volume also offers a facsimile of the extant texts to the lost “Cori da cantarsi”.

In the Preface and Critical Commentary, the editor Yuliya Shein discusses in detail the complex questions regarding the assessment of the sources and the individual pieces’ contexts of origin and performance.

- Gluck Complete Edition Series VI/1