Aside from its constantly changing and increasing selection of women's music, the Chorus also performs major works with the Cornell University Glee Club, such as Beethoven's Missa Solemnis, Handel's Messiah, and Bach's Mass in B minor.
In Mass settings of the Baroque, Classical and Romantic period the Credo line is usually set for whole choir, such as in the Symbolum Nicenum (Nicene Creed) of Bach's Mass in B minor, where the composer uses plainchant as the theme for a fugue, in the later Masses of Haydn, and the Missa Solemnis of Beethoven.
The first complete recording of the work was made in 1929, with a large choir and the London Symphony Orchestra led by Albert Coates.
SUMS has performed many great works over its lifetime, including the Australian premiere performances Bach's Mass in B minor and St Matthew Passion in 1880; premiére performances of Martin and Peter Wesley Smith’s Songs of Australia for the Australian Bicentenary in 1988, the world premiére of Nicholas Routley’s Mycenae Lookout in 1998, & world premiére of Anne Boyd’s carol, A Lullaby of the Nativity, written for SUMS in 2003.
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Other performances during this period included the soprano solo parts in Bach's Mass in B minor, Handel's Messiah and Brahms' A German Requiem, and solo recitals for the BBC Third Programme including Handel's Lusinghe piu care and Richard Strauss's Ständchen.
Throughout his career, Gregory has been a regular concert performer, giving performances in the UK of oratorios and orchestral music, including Bach’s St Matthew Passion, St John Passion, Mass in B Minor, Christmas Oratorio, Elgar’s Apostles, Handel’s Messiah and Britten’s War Requiem.
While J.S. Bach in his instrumental and orchestral suites would often place every movement in the same key (see, for example, the solo cello Suites, BWV 1007-1012 or the equally homotonal A minor solo flute partita BWV 1013), in a work like his St Matthew Passion he felt able to 'progress' from an E minor start to an ending in C minor, and his Mass in B minor actually ends in D major.
He remained there until 2001, during which time he directed the choir in Benjamin Britten's War Requiem, Bach's Mass in B Minor and St. John Passion, Igor Stravinsky's Les Noces, Sergei Rachmaninoff's Vespers, Johannes Brahms's Liebeslieder Walzer, and Giuseppe Verdi's Requiem.
In 1985 the Society organised a six-week Bach Festival in Sheffield to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the births of both J.S. Bach and Handel, during which event the Stadtkantorei from Sheffield's twin city of Bochum in Germany, performed Bach's Mass in B minor.
The title track, "The Divine Wings of Tragedy," contains excerpts from Johann Sebastian Bach's Mass in B Minor and Gustav Holst's The Planets.
In addition to Messiah, the Chorus performs other works such as Verdi's Requiem, Karl Orff's Carmina Burana, and Bach's Mass in B Minor.
Notable performances have included James MacMillan's Seven Last Words From The Cross; Bach's Mass in B minor and St Matthew Passion; Roxanna Panufnik's Westminster Mass; Alessandro Scarlatti's St Cecilia Mass; and Duke Ellington's Sacred Concert.