The Mélodie Treasury started out as a research project for Christopher Goldsack to further his interest in and knowledge of French classical song, and in particular the repertoire that wasn't necessarily suitable for him because of range or gender specificity. A fluent French speaker, he was also translating the song texts for his own recital programmes and found this a wonderful way to explore the poetry of the song texts in depth. The advent of the internet, with its free resources, meant that publication was no longer a realistic goal, but equally meant that he could share his own work freely. There are translations of the French lyrics to nearly fifteen hundred songs, and this resource is still the heart of the site.
As Christopher's interests gradually changed from performance to education, the site became an obvious platform for publishing and selling his books. With his expertise in French, he started off developing the Singing in French anthologies. The newly completed series of Oratorio anthologies were created because he felt there was a lack of really authoritative sources in an important repertoire for professional singers as well as young singers. Many of the works from which the arias are drawn are now out of print and the extracts are becoming difficult to find.
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