Choir and Orchestra Sheet Music

The practice of combining choirs and orchestras can be traced back to the different forms of instrumental accompaniment for choral music in the Renaissance and Baroque periods. As the practice of the basso continuo dissapeared, orchestral parts started to be fully written-out. Eventually the combination of orchestra and choir escaped the sphere of purely sacred music. One of the defining moments in the creation of the symphonic choral tradition was Beethoven's inclusion of soloists and choir in his Ninth Symphony (1824).