Vocal score

What it means

A vocal score is an arrangement of an orchestral score in which the full instrumental texture is reduced to one or two pianos. In vocal works such as operas or oratorios, the vocal parts are additionally notated above the piano part.

Musical use

Vocal scores serve the study of a work, rehearsal work with singers without an orchestra, and domestic engagement with operas and orchestral works before recordings were easily available. For many operas and symphonies several vocal scores by different arrangers exist, trying to render as much as possible of the orchestral sound playably on the piano. In rehearsing new works too, the vocal score remains to this day a practical working tool for repetiteurs and singers.

The vocal score should be distinguished from the full orchestral score, which notates every individual instrumental part separately, and from an independent piano version, which artistically reshapes a work for the piano rather than merely reducing it.

Performance practice

Use a vocal score to get to know an orchestral work or an opera at the piano before studying the full score. If you work as a repetiteur, practise the piano part so it carries the singers securely, even though it necessarily remains a simplification of the full orchestral sound.