SKU: BT.SLB-00595900
INSSTR inches. French.
A previously unreleased piece by Francis Poulenc, published with permission from the Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris and Benoît Seringe, secretary of the Association des amis de Francis Poulenc [Association of the Friends ofFrancis Poulenc]. Le Voyageur sans bagage [The Traveller Without Luggage], which had been premiered in 1937 with music by Darius Milhaud, was reprised on 1 April 1944 at the Thé tre de la Michodière; Francis Poulenc was asked to compose new stage music. Theentire unpublished score lay undiscovered until Bérengère de l’Épine, a librarian at the Bibliothèque Historique de la Ville de Paris, announced the existence of a manuscript in the Association de la Régie Thé trale collection.Poulenc finalised the score between 19 and 21 March 1944. It contains nine songs, all written for a small instrumental ensemble including oboe, clarinet, cello and piano. However, at the end of the manuscript, the composer echoes the second song Lent [Slow] and creates another version for cello and piano; curiously, the original version of the song has not been erased in the manuscript. Poulenc seems to suggest that we consider the piece for cello and piano, that we have publishedhere, as a different piece of music. It was premiered on Wednesday 23 January 2013 by Marc Coppey, accompanied by Jean-François Heisser, in the organ auditorium of the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et Danse de Paris (CNSMDP), during thesymposium for the fiftieth anniversary of Poulenc’s death.Given in a dramatic context, some elements allow us to get an idea of the character of the piece, which Benoît Seringe, Poulenc’s beneficiary, judiciously chose to name Souvenirs.The main character of Anouilh’s play, Gaston, is suffering from amnesia at the end of World War One. Several families try to claim him; they want him to be their missing relative. The Renaud family prove to be particularly stubborn, but Gaston doesnot recognize himself in the child and young man they depict: a ruthless and violent person. In Act 1 Scene 3, left alone for a moment, overwhelmed by the story of the “old Gaston†that is gradually coming to light, and outraged by the desire ofthose around him to appropriate him (to the detriment of the person he would like to be from now on), he whispers these words: “You all have proof, photographs that look like me, memories as clear as day… I’ve listened to you all and it’s slowlycausing a hybrid person to rise up in me; a person in which there is a piece of each of your sons and nothing of me.†Poulenc chose to place the second piece from his stage music score as these words are spoken.He borrowed part of the material, as he often did, from an earlier composition. In this particular case, the beginning is a recycled version of the “slow and melancholic†section from L’Histoire de Babar , composed between 1940 and 1945, andpremiered in 1946 (unless it is Babar that reuses the musical idea from Voyageur ).The eponymous elephant decides to leave in search of the great forest. He embraces the old lady, promises her he will return and reassures her that he will never forget her. Left alone, the old lady, feeling sad and pensive, wonders when she’ll seeher friend Babar again. The situation is similar to that in Voyageur sans bagage: solitude, sadness, a distressing and introspective time, fear of oblivion, the presence of memories…Pièce inédite de Francis Poulenc, publiée avec l’autorisation de la Bibliothèque historique de la ville de Paris et de Benoît Seringe, secrétaire de l’Association des Amis de Francis Poulenc.Le 1er avril 1944, Le Voyageur sans bagage d’Anouilh, qui avait été créé en 1937 avec de la musique de Darius Milhaud, est repris au Thé tre de la Michodière. Francis Poulenc a été sollicité afin d’écrire une nouvelle musique de scène. On ignoraittout de cette partition inédite, jusqu’au jour où Bérengère de l’Épine, conservateur la Bibliothèque historique de la ville de Paris, nous signala l’existence d’un manuscrit dans le fonds de l’Association de la Régie thé trale.Poulenc mit au point sa partition entre le 19 et le 21 mars 1944. Elle comprend neuf numéros, tous écrits pour un petit effectif instrumental réunissant un hautbois, une clarinette, un violoncelle et un piano.Cependant, la fin de son manuscrit, le compositeur reprend le no 2 Lent et en donne une seconde version, pour violoncelle et piano. Curieusement, la version originale de ce numéro n’est pas biffée dans le manuscrit.Poulenc semble nous inviter considérer comme un morceau distinct cette pièce pour violoncelle et piano dont nous proposons ici l’édition. Elle a été créée par Marc Coppey, accompagné de Jean-François Heisser, lors du concert donné durant lecolloque organisé pour le cinquantenaire du décès de Poulenc, le mercredi 23 janvier 2013, salle d’orgue du Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris (CNSMDP).Quelques éléments sur le contexte dramatique permettront de se faire une idée du caractère du morceau, que Benoît Seringe, ayant droit Poulenc, a judicieusement choisi d’intituler Souvenirs.Le personnage principal de la pièce d’Anouilh, Gaston, a été retrouvé amnésique la fin de la Première Guerre Mondiale. Plusieurs familles le réclament. On veut voir en lui un parent disparu. Les Renaud se montrent particulièrement tenaces ; maisGaston ne parvient se reconnaître dans l’enfant et le jeune homme dont on lui trace le portrait : un être violent et sans scrupule. Au tableau 3 de l’acte I, resté seul un moment, écrasé par l’histoire de cet autre lui-même qu’il découvre peu peu, indigné par le désir des personnes qui l’entourent de le ramener elles au détriment de celui qu’il voudrait être désormais, il se murmure ces paroles : « Vous avez tous des preuves, des photographies ressemblantes, des souvenirs précis commedes crimes… je vous écoute tous et je sens surgir peu peu derrière moi un être hybride où il y a un peu de chacun de vos fils et rien de moi »…C’est sur ces mots que Poulenc a choisi de placer le no 2 de sa partition de musique de scène.Comme il le fait souvent, il emprunte une composition antérieure une part de son matériau. Dans ce cas précis, il réutilise pour le début du morceau la section « Lent et mélancolique » de l’Histoire de Babar, composée entre 1940 et 1945, créée en1946 ( moins que ce ne soit Babar qui réutilise l’idée musicale du Voyageur). Le héros-éléphant s’est décidé partir pour retrouver la grande forêt. Il a embrassé la vieille dame, lui a promis de revenir, l’a rassurée : jamais il ne l’oubliera.Restée seule, la vieille dame, triste et pensive, se demande quand elle reverra son ami Babar. La situation est similaire celle du Voyageur sans bagage : solitude, tristesse, instantde trouble et de retour sur soi, crainte de l’oubli, présence des souvenirs….
SKU: FG.042-08543-1
ISBN 979-0-042-08543-1.
This song cycle is a setting of poems by Solveig von Schoultz. They describe some of the most profound human emotions: life and death, love and human relations. The music reflecs the message of the words contraststing quiet meditation and impassioned outbursts, closely interweaving the human voice and the string quartet.
SKU: HL.49045305
ISBN 9781495082405. UPC: 888680656539. 9.0x12.0x0.256 inches.
Following the premiere of my opera An American Tragedy at the Metropolitan Opera, the President of the Manhattan School of Music, Robert Sirota, called me and told me that the American String Quartet had asked him to commission me as part of the school's 90th anniversary celebration. I was very excited because this meant that the first new music I would compose after my largest piece ever would be a string quartet for my alma mater. I embraced the chance to return to chamber music with gusto because I saw this not only as an opportunity to incorporate everything I'd learned writing four grand operas into an intimate yet profound genre but also as the starting point of a new direction in my compositional thinking. 20 years separate my first and second quartet and it is not difficult to hear the evolution between the two. Tobias Picker.
SKU: BA.BA09332
ISBN 9790006533749. 32.5 x 26.6 cm inches.
Manfred Trojahn’s amply dimensioned piano quartet in four movements with a duration of approx. 40 minutes was composed and developed in several stages. The inner movements, a Vivace characterised by lombard rhythms and vitality and a dream-like adagio were written in the Mozart Year 2005. By 2008 the outer movements were completed. The opening Adagio “Zerbrochenes Lied†is an imposing lamentation of the dead whereas the Finale, a profound, moving “Wanderliedâ€, was dedicated to Trojahn’s friend and composer Wilhelm Killmayer on the occasion of his 80th birthday.In this way Trojahn’s work stands in the tradition of Mozart’s two piano quartets, but adds a biographical element.This is a large, musically demanding but rewarding work for ambitious musicians.
SKU: FG.042-08542-4
ISBN 979-0-042-08542-4.
SKU: HL.14023668
ISBN 9780711932975. 9.0x12.0x0.095 inches.
String Quartet No.3 was written for, and first performed by the Balanescu Quartet, February 1990 at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, London. Duration 16 minutes. Instrumental parts are available on sale. Quoting composer: In the summer of 1989 I composed a choral work, Out of the Ruins, for Agnieszka Piotrowska's BBC2 documentary which dealt with the physical and emotional responses of some inhabitants of Leninakhan to the earthquake which devastated Armenia the previous December. When he heard the recording of the work that I made with the Holy Echmiadzin Chorus under the fervent conducting of Khoren Meykhanejian, Alex Balanescu suggested turning Out of the Ruins into a string quartet. There seemed no reason or opportunity to do this until I felt the need to add to the intensity of my experiences in Armenia the no less profound experience of witnessing the images of the Romanian revolution on television during the later part of December 1989. The compositional procedure was as follows: to take Out of the Ruins as a template on which the Romanian vocal or instrumental music would be superimposed, quite often stretched into new intervallic shapes though the demands of the completely performed harmonic structure.
SKU: BR.PB-5531-07
Beethoven would probably have loved to be able to commission a new edition of his violin concerto from Clive Brown, since he is one of the top specialists, with a profound knowledge and experience of performance practice in Beethoven's day.
ISBN 9790004212608. 6.5 x 9 inches.
What with all the traditional editions available on the market, can we still expect new readings? This is what editor Clive Brown asked himself as he meticulously examined the often conflicting sources. The result is a wealth of new readings in the score, which deserve as much attention as the extensively commented arrangement for violin and piano. The treatment of the solo instrument is particularly interesting: next to the Urtext solo part, the edition also contains a historically informed and marked-up part with fingerings and bowings that go back to Franz Clement, the soloist of the premiere performance, and to the Viennese performance tradition of Beethovens time. For violinists of today, this is a treasure trove of new, innovative ideas and suggestions for the individual shaping of the part.
SKU: HL.50600993
8.0x11.75x0.078 inches.
The ensemble work “Scattered Shades,†composed in 2014, of the Chinese composer Guoping Jia for the instrumentation flute, clarinet, violin, violoncello and piano was premiered on 21 May 2014 in Beijing at the 'Beijing Modern Music Festival,' performed by the ensemble 'Les Temps Modernes.' Although this work received its essential inspiration from ancient Chinese pen-and-ink painting, it also simultaneously documents the overcoming of a creative crisis. During an artistically difficult period, Jia assigned himself the task in 1997 to compose a study that was to supersede the compositional techniques used so far with the means of rational construction. “Scattered Shades†has recourse to this study, retracing its structure in a more profound way with a different ensemble.
SKU: M7.SAE-31-01
ISBN 9790707665824.
This is a unique arrangement for cello and piano, a work that preserves the beauty of the original work, an icon for classical music repertoire, but at the same time different in essence due to the creative and innovative flavour that was introduced in orchestration on this occasion. The piece has been carefully adapted to suit the technical needs of each instrument, being a smart choice for the players that want to achieve the acclaim from the audience. This piece of music is suitable both for concerts given by professionals and for auditions in schools, colleges, conservatories or can be used in various other private events.
