Moby Dick is a dramatic cantata for two tenors, two basses, male chorus, and orchestra by the American composer Bernard Herrmann with a libretto by Clark Harrington based on Herman Melville's eponymous novel.
[1] Hermann originally conceived Moby Dick as an opera, but found the novel too vast in scope and instead asked the librettist Clark Harrington to help him adapt the work into a cantata.
[4][2] James Leonard of the AllMusic Guide has compared the work to that of Herrmann's 20th-century contemporaries Arnold Bax, Frederick Delius, and Ralph Vaughan Williams.
"[5] Andrew Clements of The Guardian described the cantata as being "much closer to the world of Herrmann's later film music" and "a mix of imposing choral set-pieces, orchestral interludes and solo narrations.
[6] Malcolm Riley of Gramophone similarly opined, "It is a remarkably vivid piece, displaying the dramatic skills learnt in the composing atelier of a radio studio, and deserves to be much better known and more often performed.