Fand Catalogue

  

For Unbelievers

A Cantata on a text by the composer

for choir and soloists (SATB) with piano

J. Alex Whyte

For Unbelievers was composed in the early 1990s. It was first performed in 1996 at the Church of the Holy Trinity, Nice (the composer’s home city). The performance was given by four singers from the Nice Opera Chorus accompanied by a professional synth player. After this, Albert Lance (a leading Australian-French operatic tenor) took an interest in the work and conducted the full complement of four soloists, choir and orchestra for performances in Bordighera and a number of other towns on the Côte d’Azur.

In 2016 the work was reorchestrated in collaboration with a one-time piano pupil of the composer, and the piano accompaniment in the present edition was devised.

The French describe the work as an oratorio but the Italians and British use the term cantata (and German speakers, Kantate).

In the words of the composer: “It was written as an invitation to think things over. And perhaps come to a decision.”

IMPORTANT NOTE

This version of the score is for choir and piano, and has a dual purpose:

1. It’s all you need for a performance of the piece solely with piano accompaniment;
2. It constitutes the choral part for the version of the music with orchestral accompaniment.

In other words, if you wish to perform the work with orchestra, you will also need to purchase the separate orchestral score and instrumental parts, as well as the necessary number of choir & piano scores for your singing forces to use. Then, you will be able to use the piano accompaniment in the choir & piano score during choral rehearsals, but the pianist will not be needed for the final orchestral performance.

Purchasing copies

Fand produces its music booklets to a very high quality, and they normally include expensively-printed full-colour covers, which both look very attractive and, by being robust, make the copies easier to use on music stands and add considerably to their useful lives. Unfortunately, the colour covers are much more expensive to print than the music pages they enclose, and thus greatly increase the price of the copies overall.

Given that multiple copies of the choral score will be needed by any choir to put on a performance, we are also making the choir & piano scores available more cheaply as coverless choral parts. (In other words, the full-price choir & piano scores and the cheap choral parts are absolutely identical apart from the fact that the cheaper choir parts lack the nice, robust colour covers.)

We therefore suggest that when ordering a set of music, you might like to take the following approach:

• Buy two of the more expensive choir & piano scores (with the robust colour cover) for the use of the conductor and the accompanist (for rehearsal purposes, if ultimately performing the orchestral version);
• Buy as many further copies of the cheaper coverless choral parts as are needed for the choir to use;
• Buy four further copies so that the soloists have one each (whether you buy the soloists ‘nice’ copies or cheaper choral parts is up to you!).

Bear in mind that the copies are A4-sized booklets, and are therefore large enough to be shared by two choir members if necessary.

Sample pages

(Click to enlarge)

	Composer	Title	Forces	Duration
	J. Alex Whyte Words: J. Alex Whyte Edited by Julian Cole	For Unbelievers A Cantata on a text by the composer for choir and soloists (SATB) with piano	Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass, Choir (SATB), Piano	15 mins
	Parts
	Order copies of the Score only to receive robust copies with high-quality colour covers; Order copies of the Parts only to receive cheaper coverless copies suitable for use by the singers.

Recorded performance

Albert Lance Lyric Company (Pierre-Philipe Bauzin, Conductor)
From a concert on 29th September 2001 at the Church of San Carlo, Vallebona, Italy
 
Please note that the recording provided here is of the original version of the work. The revised edition published by Fand contains a number of minor differences in the voice parts and features a substantially rewritten piano accompaniment.

Catalogue code: FM201 • Published: 3rd July 2016
Entry last updated: 3rd July 2016