Judith Weir

Little Tree consists of three short choral settings of poems by E.E.Cummings with a total duration of around 6 minutes. The first song Little tree is in three voices(SSA); the next movement I carry your heartwith me progresses into four voices; the final song now is a ship opens briefly with two solo voices but ends in 6 vocal parts. Accompanying all three pieces is a simple marimba part which acts as a continuoinstrument. In the opening movement it simply doubles the lowest vocal part; in the later pieces it provides a simple basis for the choral harmony. Judith Weir's wonderful vocal score for SSA and Marimba accompaniment. Idealfor children and female voiced choirs.

Judith Weir: My Piano Quartet (2000) is part of an extended series of works for piano and strings which I have written over the last twenty years - although I didn't know it was going to be a series when I wrote the first of theseworks Music for 247 Strings in 1980. During this period it has been far more usual for composers to write for mixed wind and string ensembles. But I continued (and still continue) to be fascinated by the potential of stringsand piano; particularly the chance to write for the instruments as soloists or as a group and often to use both these options simultaneously. Piano Score. Premiered July 2000 at the Cheltenham Festival by the SchubertEnsemble. Parts available: SOS03075

Blue-Green Hill by Judith Weir was commissioned by Boston Musica Viva (Richard Pittman Music Director) with support from the Ernst von Siemens Foundation for Music and members of the Boston Musica VivaCommission Circle:Ridgely DuvallMarilyn Bone KlossJohn and Elizabeth LoderFirst performance on 24th March 2013 at the Tsai Performance Center Boston Massachusetts by Boston Musica Viva conducted by RichardPittman.Parts for flute clarinet violin and cello.

For Baritone Voice and Piano. Commissioned by the BBC for an anthology of new songs celebrating the Schubert Bi-centenary.Text: Ludwig Rellstab.

These three pieces form a very short instrumental opera based on the life of James Reid a bagpiper in Prince Charlie's Jacobite army who was captured by the English in 1746 and executed after a judge had classified the bagpipes as a weapon. This piece is a string trio version of Sketches from a Bagpiper's Album (1984) for clarinet and piano scored for Violin Cello and Viola. Duration: c. 8 minutes. Score and parts included.

Work for Soprano Clarinet Viola and Harp. Premiered at the 2002 Cambridge Summer Music Festival. These three musical presentations of stories were written to illustrate thoughts about the many ways in which music helps and hinders storytelling. The three short settings use a variety of vocal styles. The first story is spoken throughout; the second includes Sprechstimme (i.e. melodically heightened speech) and operatic declamation; the final piece is entirely sung. The scoring is for soprano clarinet viola and in the third movement only harpScore available: CH65780

Written for the Endellion Quartet in 1990. Duration 13 minutes. Score available: SOS03075

These three pieces for cello and piano are meditations – personal secular and musical – on images from religious poetry. The title of No. 1 Angels bending near the earth comes from a carol which begins‘It came upon the midnight clear’ by the Massachusetts pastor and poet Edmund Sears. The full reference is to “angels bending near the earth/to touch their harps of gold” and this is the inspiration forthe music with piano arpeggios swooping down over the rich central band of sound produced by the cello. No. 2’s title In death’s dark vale is a brief paraphrase (from a Scottish hymnal) of Psalm 23; thefull quotation is “yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil”. The image here is of human life lived against the prospect of impending death. The cello plays a hasty self-absorbed continuo whilst around it piano motifs and chords of different height and depth create an evolving backdrop. No. 3 O sapientia is the only movement which quotes a musical original; Hildegard ofBingen’s hymn O virtus sapientiae –“O strength of wisdom”. This is a calm elegaic set of variations for the cello on Hildegard’s melody accompanied by mostly bright optimistic refl ections from thepiano. Commissioned by cellist Jonathan Miller of Boston MA. First performance on 23 September 2016 at Hamilton Hall Salem MA by Jonathan Miller (cello) and Randall Hodgkinson (piano)

A setting of four poems by Wallace Stevens Kathleen Jamie Norman MacCaig and Emily Dickinson for soprano cello and piano. commissioned by Kings Place and first performed there on 24th October 2019 by Ruby Hughes (soprano) Natalie Clein (cello) and Julius Drake (piano).