I'm not the expert on Vocal Literature textbooks but... Oh yeah, I
am! :-)
I use Carol Kimball's Song: A guide to Style and Literature as an
optional text in my course. I don't use it as a textbook, per se, but
rather I think it's a nice resource for students to have.
A History of Song, edited by Denis Stevens is very uneven. If you are
not familiar with it, it has essays (by different authors) on
Medieval and Renaissance Song, and then from the Baroque on divided
by nationality. Because of the nature of the book, Bartok warrants
about 8 pages in the chapter on Hungarian Song, while Faure gets less
than 3 pages in the chapter on French Song. As a result, it's a great
place to start for many nationalities, but very uneven overall.
Some people use the Emmons and Sonntag Art of the Song Recital. It's
a great book, but not exactly a Vocal Literature text, IMO. Still
others use combinations of books on the major national schools.
If you are interested, I can send you via attachment my
bibliographies. I haven't updated them for this year yet and they
only contain items in the UNT library (which is still quite a few!)
I keep talking about writing my own book, but first I need tenure and
a sabbatical and...
-Jeff Snider
University of North Texas
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