Dramatic Vocalise Database



Home of the "Heavenly Chorus"


[Dramatic Vocalization = "Heavenly Chorus" and a whole lot more]







District 9 (2009)

"The whole world was watching, expecting, I don't know, music from Heaven and bright shinging lights."
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)

"Even a filthy beggar like that has got a protecting angel. A golden-haired angel watches over him."


The Dramatic Vocalise Database (DVD) was originally created to help organize the numerous musical examples relevant to my dissertation, Sirènes, Spectres, Ombres: Dramatic Vocalization in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (2009) [abstract]. In my dissertation I explored the rise and development of this phenomenon, as separate from the similar vocalise-étude, and its eventual impact on film music. The purpose of the public version of the DVD is to further data collection and research into this fascinating sub-genre, hopefully resulting in a new iconological classification system for the representative examples.

As of November 17, 2022: New entries for Auber’s operas La sirène (1844) and Haydée (1847).

Recent additions include clips from Krull (1983), It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963), Moonraker (1979) and Sodom and Gomorrah (1962), additional material on Rimsky-Korsakov's Mlada (1892) and the movie Joan of Arc (1948), Herbert Howell's wonderful Sine Nomine: A Phantasy, Op. 37 (1922), and a list of Westerns/Spaghetti Westerns containing dramatic vocalization.



'