SKU: HH.HH599-FSP
ISBN 9790708213147.
Eigh teenth-century England was full of amateur musicians making music without fanfare at home. Some of them were also gifted composers, and among the best was Benjamin Skinner (1728–1757) from what was then the village of Bromley near Bow, today part of London’s East End. Skinner’s main publication was a set of six sonatas for flute, violin or solo harpsichord, which came out in 1752. These unpretentious pieces, then as now well suited to performance by amateurs or by musicians in training, are full of delights, mixing stylistic features inspired by Purcell or Handel with evocations of English popular vocal music and also the newer galant style introduced from Italy. Perhaps these sonatas work best with flute and basso continuo, but the other two performance options are good alternatives.
SKU: HH.HH608-FSP
ISBN 9790708213222.
Quen tin’s trio sonatas are impressive for their command of all the elements of musical composition, particularly counterpoint (fugues are one of his specialities). They mix French and Italian elements attractively and vary the movement types employed intelligently so as to give each work individuality. They are equally suited to recreational and concert use and deserve to stand alongside their companion works by such composers as Leclair and Mondonville.
SKU: HH.HH532-SOL
ISBN 9790708185444.
Moza rt’s final three symphonies were composed, according to Mozart’s autograph Verzeichnüß, in the space of a few weeks, from late June to early August 1788. During that year the 11-year-old Hummel was a resident pupil of Mozart and would have been a daily witness to the creation of these foundational works of the Western musical canon. There is an almost total lack of documentary evidence concerning the circumstances of these works, however, which has led to considerable speculation as to their origins, early performances and reception. There are three plausible scenarios for the genesis of these symphonies: that they were written for a series of subscription concerts scheduled for autumn 1788; that Mozart wrote them with the (unfulfilled) intention of publication as an opus; that they may have been prepared in advance of Mozart’s projected visit to London with his British friends the Storace family, Thomas Attwood and Michael Kelly (again unfulfilled). A contemporaray review in The Harmonicum (1823) of Hummel’s piano arrangements of these works notes, approvingly, that they show his perfect knowledge of the instrument and his nice [= fastidious] discrimination in selecting the most effective parts from the score in those places where the whole could not be taken.
SKU: HH.HH598-FSP
ISBN 9790708213130.
SKU: HH.HH604-FSC
ISBN 9790708213192.
Henr y Holcombe (1690–1756), born in Chester as the son of a silk weaver, became between 1720 and his death one of the leading English composers in small-scale forms, mainly vocal but also instrumental. Most of his vocal compositions are short, strophic songs, but each of his two major song collections – The Garland (1748) and The Musical Medley (1755) – contains a work in several movements describable as a chamber cantata. This volume brings together Holcombe’s four cantatas, which are very attractive melodically and fine examples of a kind of music widely cultivated in English domestic music-making during most of the eighteenth century. They can be performed by voice and keyboard alone, but the option also exists to use a violin and/or a cello in addition.
SKU: HH.HH607-FSP
ISBN 9790708213215.
SKU: HH.HH566-SOL
ISBN 9790708185819.
Moza rt’s final three symphonies were composed, according to Mozart’s autograph Verzeichnüß, in the space of a few weeks, from late June to early August 1788. During that year the 11-year-old Hummel was a resident pupil of Mozart and would have been a daily witness to the creation of these foundational works of the Western musical canon. There is an almost total lack of documentary evidence concerning the circumstances of these works, however, which has led to considerable speculation as to their origins, early performances and reception. There are three plausible scenarios for the genesis of these symphonies: that they were written for a series of subscription concerts scheduled for autumn 1788; that Mozart wrote them with the (unfulfilled) intention of publication as an opus; that they may have been prepared in advance of Mozart’s projected visit to London with his British friends the Storace family, Thomas Attwood and Michael Kelly (again unfulfilled). A contemporaray review in The Harmonicum (1823) of Hummel’s piano arrangements of these works notes, approvingly, that they show his perfect knowledge of the instrument and his nice [= fastidious] discrimination in selecting the most effective parts from the score in those places where the whole could not be taken.
SKU: HH.HH095-SOL
ISBN 9790708041337.
This music is written for pianists who are in love with their instrument. A relatively short work excellently suited for teaching.
SKU: HH.HH515-SOL
ISBN 9790708185253.
Hayd n’s Symphony No. 101 was first performed on 3 March 1794 at the Hanover Square Rooms under the direction of Salomon as concertmaster with the composer himself at the fortepiano. The work was an instant success and soon became, and remains to this day, one of Haydn’s most popular symphonies.
SKU: HH.HH596-CHS
ISBN 9790708213116.
A refreshingly intimate setting of the Preces and Responses in easy SATB: a welcome addition to the Evensong repertoire. Emma writes I approached the text as prayer, considering not only the words themselves, but the circumstances in which a person might be moved to such prayer..
SKU: HH.HH586-FSP
ISBN 9790708213017.
Sain t Pancras refers to the original name of the Hooglandse Kerk in Leiden, the Netherlands, where Emma is composer in residence.
SKU: HH.HH587-FSP
ISBN 9790708213024.
Fish er’s Op. 2 set is externally very similar to its Op. 1 predecessor in its combinations of movement types and musical language, but now has an added spaciousness and audacity born of greater maturity. Everything is wonderfully blended: the fugal movements are melodious; the ‘singing allegros’ are harmonically rich and contrapuntally charged; the dance-like movements, full of happy surprises, fizz and purr. Op. 2 appeared in print only in the year following Fisher’s death. Surprisingly in the circumstances, the level of accuracy in the engraved parts matched the high standard set by Op. 1. This would have gratified the composer, who was so evidently a perfectionist in all he undertook.
SKU: HH.HH590-FSP
ISBN 9790708213055.
The ten motets (Concerti sacri) for solo voice, violins and continuo making up his Op. 3 (1703) are among his most attractive compositions, standing on the borderline between seventeenth-century bel canto and the progressive trends represented by Alessandro Scarlatti and, later, Antonio Vivaldi. The two motets for bass voice concluding the set delight through their euphony and the sheer swagger of Aldrovandini’s writing for the voice.
SKU: HH.HH602-FSC
ISBN 9790708213178.
Part I explores themes of love, regretting its loss and sometime futility. Part II, opening with the lightest song in the work, rapidly darkens to a nightmarish mood and concludes with the sonnet – fourteen lines – which, paraphrased, gives the work its title. Its succinct expression of the philosophical and technical dilemmas of the poet, as she struggles to put the violent and demonic tyranny of existential Disorder into the Order of the poem, is reminiscent of the age-old conflict of Dionysus and Apollo: the archetype which has underpinned so much artistic endeavour.
SKU: HH.HH591-FSC
ISBN 9781914137242.
Ordi nary violin sonatas formed the backbone of the series of ten collections that the Italian violinist Michel Mascitti (1663/4–1760), born in southern Italy but permanently resident in Paris from 1703, committed to print between 1704 and 1738. His Op. 7 (1727) opens with eight such sonatas but ends with four concertos for strings in six parts that, alongside a collection of concertos for five flutes (!) by J.B. de Boismortier published in the same year, inaugurate the proud tradition of concertos created on French soil. Amazingly, Mascitti’s concertos have been neglected not merely by publishers and performers but also by commentators. In particular, the first two concertos display great musical merit in an original idiom that combines Italian and French influences in a very personal way. Further, their Italianate elements juxtapose features familiar from the concertos of Corelli, Mascitti’s reputed teacher, with ones more usually associated with Vivaldi. Both concertos are laden with emotion, albeit never at the expense of the polish and attention to detail that are the hallmark of Mascitti’s craft.
SKU: HH.HH531-SOL
ISBN 9781914137280.
Moza rtâ??s final three symphonies were composed, according to Mozartâ??s autograph VerzeichnüÃ?, in the space of a few weeks, from late June to early August 1788. During that year the 11-year-old Hummel was a resident pupil of Mozart and would have been a daily witness to the creation of these foundational works of the Western musical canon. There is an almost total lack of documentary evidence concerning the circumstances of these works, however, which has led to considerable speculation as to their origins, early performances and reception. There are three plausible scenarios for the genesis of these symphonies: that they were written for a series of subscription concerts scheduled for autumn 1788; that Mozart wrote them with the (unfulfilled) intention of publication as an opus; that they may have been prepared in advance of Mozartâ??s projected visit to London with his British friends the Storace family, Thomas Attwood and Michael Kelly (again unfulfilled). A contemporaray review in The Harmonicum (1823) of Hummelâ??s piano arrangements of these works notes, approvingly, that they show his perfect knowledge of the instrument and his nice [= fastidious] discrimination in selecting the most effective parts from the score in those places where the whole could not be taken.
SKU: HH.HH278-FSP
ISBN 9790708092353.
Thes e four pieces for piano and cello have been gestating over many years but were not fully realized until 2009. The music's origins lie partly in the personal and partly in the poetic.
SKU: HH.HH250-CON
ISBN 9790708059998.
Writ ten for the Wirral Schools' Concert Band in 1987, Strong Winds, Gentle Airs is built, as the title suggests, from two types of material – one forceful and rhythmic, the other more relaxed, with slow moving, almost static harmonies. In revising the piece for publication, the composer has endeavoured to retain as much of the original character as possible.
