Concerto for Clarinets in Four Movements

SKU: HL.49045775

ISBN 9783702471132. UPC: 803452068235. 7.0x10.0x0.436 inches.

Kurt Weill developed his creative energies mainly within the world of musical theater, where he proved to be an immensely productiveand imaginative innovator, but he also left behind a small body of work for the concert hall. The Concerto for Violin and Wind Orchestra op. 12 dates from the spring of 1924. Scored for two flutes, clarinets, bassoons, horns, one oboe and trumpet, percussion and four contrabasses, the concerto comprises three movements. While composing the work, Weill informed his publisher: 'I am workingon a concerto for violin and wind orchestra that I hope to finish within two or three weeks. The work is inspired by the idea - one never carried out before - of juxtaposing a single violin with a chorus of winds.' The specific character of Weill's concerto as music written for chamber orchestra (with an often soloistic treatment of instruments) leads to a transparency that requires utmost precision in the ensemble playing. In the quest for an overall sonic balance, the coarser-sounding wind instruments need to explore all dynamic nuances. The solo part is challenging not only from a technical standpoint but also from an acoustic one (it is crucial to make the violin 'sound'). In spite of these challenges - or precisely because of them - critics in the 1920s called the solo parthighly idiomatic and extremely rewarding. Since then the concerto has become a 'modern classic' in concert halls around the world. (Elmar Juchem, August 2010). The score is based on the critical text of the Kurt Weill Edition Ser. II, Vol. 2.

SKU: PR.466411770

UPC: 680160640850. 9 x 12 inches.

Mississippi I. Father of Waters: born of the Highlands and the Lakes; the Glaciers, the Mountains, and the Prairies. The picture of your birth is clounded in the ice and mists of ancient ages but your spirit remains our life stream. II. The Red Man knew your bountiful gifts and gave thanks to the Great Spirit on your banks. -- The Spanish and French Fathers brought the glory of Christianity to America on Mississippi. But all men, white and dark; -- Indian, Spaniard, and Negro; Bourbon and Yankee, combined to make Mississippi the heart of America. Saga of the Mississippi Harl McDonald Born near Boulder, Colorado, July 27, 1899 Now living in Philadelphia The original suggestion for a symphonic work on the subject of the Mississippi came indirectly from the late Booth Tarkington who saw in it color and movement and atmosphere translatable into the terms of music. In the course of time, by the mysterious processes of composers' chemistry, it took shape as a tone-poem of two sections, one representing the rise of the great stream from its primeval geologic sources, the other the human history of the river. Mr. McDonald devised the following verbal outline of the general scheme of his diptych: I. Father of Waters: born of the Highlands and the Lakes; the Glaciers, the Mountains, and the Prairies. The picture of your birth is clounded in the ice and mists of ancient ages but your spirit remains our life stream. II. The Red Man knew your bountiful gifts and gave thanks to the Great Spirit on your banks. -- The Spanish and French Fathers brought the glory of Christianity to America on Mississippi. But all men, white and dark; -- Indian, Spaniard, and Negro; Bourbon and Yankee, combined to make Mississippi the heart of America. The first of the two movements, beginning molto andante, is vaguel modal to hint at antiquity. It is built upon the conventional two themes, with an episode, poco piu mosso, misterioso, for prehistoric murk and muck. There are various changes of pace and mood. The second, Allegro ma vigorosamente, prefigures an Indian ceremony. A theme presented by flute, clarinet and bassoon is a Canadian Indian fishing call collected by the late J.B. Beck. A later passage of quasi-Gregorian chant identifies the French and Spanish priests who made the great river their highway. The fishing-call is altered in rhythm and harmony to represent Negro field hands and roustabous. A turbulent close brings all these elemts together in the muddy swirling currents of the Mississippi. The work was begun in the summer of 1945, and was revised and completed in the summer of 1947. Harl McDonald, who is the manager of The Philadelphia Orchestra, has concerned himself with music as an art, as a science and as a business in course of his career. He was born on a cattle ranch in the Rockies, but since his was a musical family, his up-bringing combined piano lessons with ranch life. Years of study and professional experience followed in Los Angeles and in Germany. In 1927 he was appointed lecuter in composition at the University of Pennsylvania and he has since then made is home in Philadelphia. In 1933 under a grant of the Rockefeller FOundation he collaborated with physicists in research dealing with the measurement of instrumental and vocal tone, new scale divisions and the resultant harmonies. In that same year he was named head of the University's music faculty and conductor of its choral organizations. In 1939, having been a member of the Board of Directors for five years, he was appointed manager of The Philadelphia Orchestra. He continus to write, but otherwise his entire attention is now devoted to managerial duties. Chief items in the catalogue of his compositions are four symphonies, three orchestra suites, a half-dozen tone-poems, three concertos and considerable quantity of choral music.