I'm presuming you're a soprano, given your consideration of Barber's
"Knoxville".
There is a concerto for voice and orchestra by Reinhold Gliere - his
concerto for coloratura soprano (1943). It's in two movements, and runs in
total about 14 minutes long, and is somewhat reminiscent of the famous
Rachmaninov "Vocalise".
There is also John Herbert Foulds' "Lyra Celtica" op. 50, which is a
concerto for voice and orchestra (Foulds was a contemporary of Delius,
Vaughan Williams, Holst, et al).
Actually, there is any number of Baroque vocal concerti (sacred and
secular) - e.g., by Alessandro Scarlatti, Heinrich Schuetz, Nicolaus
Bruhns, etc. - the only problem is, they are all relatively short, and probably
not what your professor has in mind. Arguably, the Cantata form, honed to
exquisite maturity by J.S. Bach, is actually a vocal concerto form.
Monteverdi called a section of his 7th Book of Madrigals a "concerto for
voice and instruments".
Similarly, there are some Mozart arias (concert and operatic) that conform
pretty closely to concerto "form", including "Ch'io mi scordi di te...Non
temero amato bene" (concert aria, K505) and "Se il padre perdei" from
IDOMENEO. And, of course, his "Exsultate jubilate" (K165), while labeled a
"Motet" by Mozart, was actually conceived by him as a vocal concerto for
the castrato Venanzio Rauzzini, who was starring in Mozart's early opera
LUCIA SILLA at the time.
There are a number of more recent concerti for voice and various
instruments, plus one for "voice and silence" and another for "voice and
machinery", by lesser-known living composers.
An argument can be made, in fact, that many song cycles for voice and
orchestra, such as the Ravel "Don Quichotte" cycle, the Berlioz "Les nuits
d'ete", and the Brahms "Alto Rhapsody" actually qualify as vocal concerti,
the same way that Mahler wrote symphonies that were also song-cycles.
However you define "vocal concerto" or "concerto for voice", however, your
main problem is going to be finding something of the required duration (40
minutes). I would suggest you check with your professor to see whether it
would be possible for you to do two or three contrasting vocal concerti
that together add up to approx. 40 minutes - e.g., a baroque sacred
concerto, the Mozart "Exsultate Jubilate", and the Gliere or the Foulds.
Probably more ambitious than you want to be, but on the other
hand you could make a really good case for being able to illustrate not
just one but three different concerto performance styles as well as the
overall EVOLUTION of the vocal concerto through the centuries.
Karen Mercedes
http://www.radix.net/~dalila/index.html
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In all thy ways acknowledge him,
and he shall direct thy paths.
- Proverbs 3:6
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