Our new organist / choirmaster has started organising semi-regular musical evenings for our village, and along with one of the sopranos from our church choir, I've been asked to sing a duet on the last couple of occasions. I'm an alto / mezzo, and neither of us has had any formal training.

Does anyone have any recommendations for a book of fairly straight-forward duets for SS / SA? We have access to some collections intended for 2-part church choir, but (as you would expect) that's largely sacred music, and it would be nice to have something a little more varied, though not "pop" stuff. We've previously sung the Lloyd Webber "Pie Jesu" and the "Flower Duet" from Lakme, for instance.

All suggestions gratefully received!

Would Rossini's Cats' Duet (not sure if that's the proper title) work for those voice types? I don't think it's too demanding technically and could be quite fun for a musical evening if it's not too serious an occasion.

Thanks, Czerny - I'll see if I can find that one.

However, what I was really hoping to find was a collection of duets all around the same level of difficulty (ie the kind of thing one can get usually get tons of for instrumentalists). Do these not exist in the same way for voice? I've done some browsing on internet music shops, and I've not really turned up anything relevant yet.

http://www.abrsm.org/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t35512.html

Probably it's time for me to recommend (once again) my favourite duet book - "Folk songs for Two" by Jay Althouse. It's just for 2 voices - type not specified. The arrangements are really nice and you can get a version of the book with CD of the accompaniments - good for practising away from the pianist.
Songs include "Shenandoah", "All through the night" "Scarborough Fair" etc. If you want more details like ranges for the 2 parts, pm me & I'll check for you

On a more classical front, Mendelssohn wrote a whole book of duets (many of them originally for Queen Victoria and Albert!!) - also worth checking out.

This sounds like just the sort of book I could do with for my two girls. I love hearing them sing together (even if they only tend to do it in the car)! You must have been doing a good job with your recommendations. Amazon is out of stock.

If you've done the Flower Duet, I think you're being a bit modest in requesting something 'fairly easy'! If you want to stick with classical style (as opposed to folk song arrangements) , as well as the Mendelssohn recommended by thouston, there are some great volumes of original duets by Schumann, Brahms and Dvorak (Songs from Moravia). ( How's your German?) Also, going back a bit, plenty of famous ones by Purcell ( Sound the Trumpet, Let us wander, Shepherd, Shepherd), all of which are pretty straight-forward. And going back even further, there are some lovely chamber duets by Monteverdi. Most of my singing students do plenty of duets

I have used this wonderful book SO much since you told me about it! Thanks again

Anything by Jay Althouse or Althouse and Sally K Albrecht is good...