Recommendations needed: secular classical/contemporary repertoir

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I am an amateur of classical/contemporary works and an atheist, so I find it a bit uneasy to listen or sing along to oeuvres about different kind of spiritualisms or about people making religion a key feature of their lives. I was wondering if you could refer me to some secular works that I might like.

― Sébastien Chikara (Sébastien Chikara), Saturday, 24 April 2004 19:52 (nineteen years ago) link

John Adams - Nixon in China

― noodle vague (noodle vague), Saturday, 24 April 2004 19:56 (nineteen years ago) link

I got some recommendations from the secular web forum (infidels.org)

David Chesky: The Agnostic. An oratorio exploring atheist and humanistic themes.
Leonard Bernstein: Candide. A musical setting of Voltaire's play.
Frederick Delius: Requiem. Dedicated to "young artists fallen in the war" (WWII), Delius work is a celebration of life and renewal without religion.
The Wizard of Oz is a very self-reliant movie, that shows the authority figure, the Wizard, as a complete fraud. In his incarnation in Kansas, he is Professor Marvel, a con artist with less power. Dorothy finds out she has the power to change her life with the help of her three friends, but she had to learn it herself, as Glinda the Good Witch tells her.
Richard Strauss: Also Sprach Zarathustra. Tone-poem inspired by the writings of Friederich Nietszche.
Carmen by Bizet--hailed by Nietzsche as the "Dionysian" opera. The heroine, Carmen, is a Gypsy who openly scorned Bourgeois and Christian values.
Camina Burana by Orff--based on Medieval lyrics. An overtly "Dionysian" celebration of sensual life such as wine, sex, and nature.

Chansons Madecasses by Ravel--A chanson-cycle using the viewpoints of the "native people" in Madecascar. The second song is explicitly anti-colonialist and anti-Christian.
Charles Ives: General William Booth Enters Into Heaven. Setting of the Vachel Lindsay poem lampooning the fundamentalist preacher.

― Sébastien Chikara (Sébastien Chikara), Saturday, 24 April 2004 21:41 (nineteen years ago) link

Haven't heard them but I think Stewart Wallace "Where's Dick?" and "Harvey Milk" would fit the bill.

― SÃ©bastien Chikara (Sébastien Chikara), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:45 (nineteen years ago) link

I think you are stretching the definition of "secular" with that Ives piece.

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:46 (nineteen years ago) link

It was recommended by someone else, I haven't read the lyrics to make my mind about it. In the blockquote of my second post, I shouldn't have included the wizard of oz (too), who is like a movie.

― SÃ©bastien Chikara (Sébastien Chikara), Monday, 26 April 2004 16:58 (nineteen years ago) link

Also, "Carmina Burana" is super-mystical as well as carnal and was written by dirty monks. I think your source is grasping at straws here ("I like it, therefore it is secular!").

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 26 April 2004 17:07 (nineteen years ago) link

I'll check out Hans Werner Henze who apparently is "definitely atheistic modern composer (...) - composer of the world's first self-described atheist requiem, amongst many other works."

Is most contemporary compositions like most tv or film or etc; maybe not overtly atheist, but not concerned by religion or it is still a place where religion is an important theme?

I don't really know.
On one hand there is ex Berg "Wozzeck", Hans Werner Henze "DAS VERRATENE MEER", Judith Weir " A Night at the Chinese Opera" etc who are not concerned with religion but there seems to me to be a lot of counter-examples like Meredith Monk "atlas" in which there's some "demons" in it, John Casken "golem" is based on a Jewish legend, John Adams "el ninÃµ" is about the birth jesus...

Dan, by any chance would you know works that could be in a secular countertenor contemporary repertoir? Do you know a place where I could ask?

I don't really know countertenor rep. Actually, I don't really know secular rep; there's an entire realm of art song as well as opera rep that you probably want to explore (try starting with Wolf for the art songs and, like, anybody for opera).

― VengaDan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 26 April 2004 17:55 (nineteen years ago) link

I saw a new opera at the Battersea Arts Centre a few months ago about Dennis Nielsen, the serial killer. It was a work in progress and we got to give our opinions. It was visually exciting, very multi-media. The music itself was alright, without being sparkling.

― Japanese Giraffe (Japanese Giraffe), Thursday, 6 May 2004 11:49 (nineteen years ago) link

thirteen years pass...

https://www.olagon.org/

\m/

― reggie (qualmsley), Friday, 23 February 2018 22:47 (six years ago) link

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