SKU: HL.49003214

ISBN 9790220117282. UPC: 888680784249. 8.25x11.75x0.052 inches. Latin.

Glorious Hill may be performed by a male choir.Text by Pico della Mirandola (1463-1497) from De Hominis Dignitate.Glorious Hill was commissioned by the Hilliard Ensemble and first performed by them at its summer Festival of Voices in Lewes, Sussex, in August 1988. It was the first piece I wrote for the ensemble and I focused on the singers' unique ability to move with ease from early music to tonal music of the present day. There were techniques which I asked for which I hardly needed to notate - the staggered breathing of the two tenors to supply a continuous unbroken held note for example - and the piece moves between passages for solo voices and sections of highly chromatic homophony, almost as if the music were switching between the 12th century of Perotin and the 16th century of Gesualdo. Each of the four voices is given its own solo passage, sometimes accompanied, sometimes quietly supported by the other voices.The title, Glorious Hill comes from the name of the small-town Mississippi setting of Tennessee Williams' Summer and Smoke. I wrote the music for the 1987 production of this play at the Leicester Haymarket Theatre, the first time I had written any incidental music for the stage. Williams makes very specific demands in terms of music and there is one particularly powerful scene, the penultimate one, throughout which music and atmospheric sound effects are continuous. The principle character Alma argues passionately about the vital importance of human choice with the man to whom she has, too late, admitted her love. I watched this section every night throughout the 4 week run of the play watching the different ways in which the actress, Frances Barber, played the scene. There is a powerful emotional and philosophical connection between the imagery of this scene and a passage from the Renaissance philosopher Pico della Mirandola's Oration on the Dignity of Man which forms the text of Glorious Hill. This passage has been described as one of the few passages in Renaissance philosophy to treat human freedom in a modern way. The text, which is sung in Latin, is addressed by God to Adam before the fall from grace.Gavin Bryars.

SKU: HL.49045601

ISBN 9790001166256. UPC: 841886032682. 7.5x10.75x0.067 inches. Latin. Psalm 89.

About 40 compositions, including half for accompanying and unaccompanied choir, are currently in the catalog of young Polish composer Katarzyna Danel (born 1992). After several national composition competitions, she won the 13th International Composition Competition Musica Sacra Nova with her Misericordias Domini for eight-part mixed choir a cappella. The complex spiritual a cappella choir is based on the Gregorian chant of the same name (Psalm 89,2). Three principal structures are characteristic of this Latin-language choral piece: on the one hand, aleatoric sound clouds in major pentatonic scales, soundally supported by long-held organum-like notes taken from the Gregorian choral melody; As well as a renaissance-like polyphony, which is linked with modern harmony; And finally long static chords that blend into harmony and space. A wonderfully mystical-spherical composition, which also gives the individual performer the possibility of individual design through the ad libitum passages marked in the sheet music.

SKU: GI.WW1830

UPC: 785147031468. Latin. Text by Titus Lucretius.

Lucretius' ancient words describe strickingly modern notions about nature, humanity, and creation. Contemporary harmonies are interwoven with passages evoking Renaissance motents, chant, and madrigals. A challenging and artistic work from Jason Saunders.