American Choral Review Archive

Isaac's Alia Battaglia has been a favorite composition since its...

Isaac's Alia Battaglia has been a favorite composition since its first modern edition in 1907, but it has always been known as an instrumental composition. The recent rediscovery of a manuscript part-book with a partial text and an early printed book with the full text has provided evidence that the work was actually a vocal piece and has led to an unusually vivid picture of one of the most splendid ceremonial occasions to have taken place in Florence during the Renaissance.

One cannot quite suppress the comment "What next?" and in...

One cannot quite suppress the comment "What next?" and in a New York Times editorial entitled "How Far Shall We Go With Minimalism?" Donal Henahan has addressed himself to this question. As we reprint his polemic masterpiece, we must necessarily leave the question itself open - but here lies the crux of the argument: the last word may never be spoken. Amusingly enough, some of Henahan's fastidious readers missed the point and thus prompted a second editorial under the heading "The Trouble With Irony, Frivolity And Such."