By the time of "Lost in the Stars" Weill's musical language had broadened to include African-American spirituals and blues, alongside some starkly dramatic choral writing.
It's a devastatingly powerful evocation of Mary's agony, balancing impassioned choral writing with equally intense, occasionally violent, work for the strings of the Britten Sinfonia.
There are too many theatrical and musical coups to mention: the floating hand, the water spout moment, the lament to hunger, the climactic choral writing.
The vivid choral writing varies constantly, from plaintive multipart harmony, to episodes of every-which-way counterpoint, to eerily hummed declamations.
This is Rossini at the height of his operatic powers: boisterously fluid and inventive, sparkling with dramatic sequences, colourful orchestration and lush choral writing.
His Symphony No. 5, with its sweeping choral writing and its text drawn from various sacred writings, seems to be his most direct response to Beethoven's "Choral" Symphony.
Handel's choral writing is miraculous.
The choral writing is shockingly difficult.
But the choral writing is terribly ineffective.
Indeed, the choral writing is the work's most successful element.
In particular, there is some exquisite choral writing.
