Singing men win

It is the same in the animal kingdom as it was with the Neanderthals: a man who can sing well demonstrates strength, creativity and health to those around him. So singing men actually have everything that women want. And yet the male choir species is ailing and singing in choirs is increasingly becoming a woman's job. The success of a men's choir depends crucially on its repertoire and the associated challenge of getting young men interested in singing.

Two interesting repertoire collections have recently been published that should not be missing from any men's choir library:

The successful "Chor aktuell" series from Bosse-Verlag has grown once again; this time with a highly recommended volume for male choir. The collection is characterized by exciting original literature and high-quality, demanding, but at the same time easy-to-sing arrangements. As usual, there is a wide range of styles, genres and foreign-language texts as well as a large pop and avant-garde section.

The second volume of Breitkopf & Härtel's Choral Library, a series of ten volumes published to mark the 300th anniversary of the publishing house, is also dedicated to the male choir. The volume contains considerably more secular than sacred music. What is interesting about it is that for the first time the publisher has brought together almost all available individual editions from 300 years of publishing history and retained the original sheet music. The volume thus offers a well-assorted basic repertoire with a focus on Romantic choral music (Schubert, Schumann, Mendelssohn), but more "modern" composers such as Sibelius, Johann Nepomuk David or Siegfried Thiele, who continued the male choral tradition into the 20th century, are also represented.

Chor aktuell - Männer, edited by Oskar Egle, Stefan Kalmer, Hans-Joachim Lustig, BE 2499, € 25.95, Bosse Verlag, Kassel 2017

Chorbibliothek für Männerchor, collection of sacred and secular choral music, ChB 5324, 368 pages, € 24.90, Breitkopf & Härtel, Wiesbaden 2017