Five Poems

SKU: HL.14015707

6.75x9.75x0.098 inches.

Tony Hewitt-Jones' Full Fathom Five from Seven Sea Poems. Part song for SSAATTBB Choir with Piano. This work incorporates words by William Shakespeare.

SKU: HL.234540

9.0x12.0x0.09 inches. English.

'This set of miniatures is based on traditional dance songs of the Yupik Eskimo people of Western Alaska. In their original forms, these melodies would be sung in unison. The first, third and fifth songs would be accompanied by frame drums. The second and fourth are game songs, for jumping rope and juggling pebbles. Aside from the obvious difference in instrumentation, my settings of these songs differ from the Yup'ik originals in other respects. I have extended and varied the melodies, and added countermelodies, ostinato figurations, introductions, interludes and codas. The first four melodies are drawn from the collection Yup'ik Eskimo songs, compiled by Thomas F. Johnston, and Tupou L. Pulu, and published by the University Of Alaska. The fifth was 'loaned' to me by Yup'ik singer and dancer Chuna McIntyre, who learned it in his village of Eek, Alaska. The poems preceding each piece are rough translations of the words to the songs. These verses are often cryptic and enigmatic. Their obscurity is increased because some of the words or their meanings have been lost, over time.' - John Luther Adams.

SKU: PR.111401800

UPC: 680160618132. 8.5 x 11 inches. Text: Nelly Sachs. Nelly Sachs. Text: Five Poems of Nelly Sachs, Translation from German of Nos. I, III and IV by Ruth and Matthew Mead, of No. II by Michael Roloff and No. V by Michael Hamburger.

O The Chimneys is a setting of five poems by Nelly Sachs, the great German-Jewish 1966 Nobel Prize co-winner in literature, whose writing concerned itself almost entirely with the subject of the holocaust. Composed in 1969, the work was my own personal way of saying, through my own art, do not forget. Shockingly, these words have as much relevance today as they did when the work was written. Today we find ourselves having to say do not forget, do not distort, do not deny it ever happened.   I selected the five poems from Sachs' O The Chimneys collection, retaining its grimly evocative title even though I did not include the actual poem by that name. In scoring the work for female voice, flute, clarinet/bass clarinet, cello, piano and percussion, I aimed to give myself the broadest possible palette of instrumental colors while using the smallest number of participants. Yet as I was planning the final moments of my cycle, I felt that instrumental sound alone would not suffice to express the horror. An electronic tape segment was added to the work's final climax.   The first two poems (A Dead Child Speaks and Already Embraced by the Arm of Heavenly Solace), both depicting the tearing of a child away from his mother, are treated essentially as one unit, with the first acting as an introduction to the second. These two, and the cycle's apocalyptic fifth poem (Hell is Naked from Glowing Enigmas II), act as the two weighty pillar points, so to speak, surrounding the more introspective two middle poems (Fleeing and Someone Comes). To maximize dramatic differentiation within the constraints of a relentlessly tragic subject matter, I used range as a means to delineate contrast, by dividing the sounds available to me into low and dark (mvt. III) vs. high and, at times, eerily bright (mvt. IV) colors. Thus the two middle poems are intended to balance the frenzied madness of which the work's outer parts are made.   The work received its first performance in New York at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Grace Rainey Auditorium on January 19, 1970.   --Shulamit Ran.

SKU: HL.14017278

Tristia is a song-cycle to words by Osip Mandelstam, one of the founding members of the so-called Acmeist school of Russian poetry - a movement which has much in common with both Symbolism and Imagism. As a Jewish dissident who had survived the Russian Revolution of 1917 and fallen foul of the subsequent Soviet regime, Mandelstam found it increasingly difficult to get either recognition or employment. In 1934 he was arrested for having written a satirical poem about Stalin. He perished four years later in a labour camp. Though he died in complete obscurity - nobody seems to know for certain the exact time or place of his death - his memory was kept alive by the courage and devotion of his wife Nadezhda whose book, Hope against Hope, is a moving chronicle of their last few years together. The five poems which make up the cycle are taken from the collection published in 1922 under the title, Tristia, a reference to the work of the same name by the exiled Latin poet, Ovid. The poems are set in English, but even in translation they convey the essence of Mandelstam's highly personal, associative style. As such they express the reactions of an alienated, sensitive and classically-educated outsider to the turbulent events he had so recently lived through. The five poems which make up the cycle are taken from the collection published in 1922 under the title, Tristia, a reference to the work of the same name by the exiled Latin poet, Ovid. The poems are set in English, but even in translation they convey the essence of Mandelstam's highly personal, associative style. As such they express the reactions of an alienated, sensitive and classically-educated outsider to the turbulent events he had so recently lived through.

SKU: HL.14010207

ISBN 9780711924925. UPC: 196288152422. 9.0x12.0x0.306 inches.

Elias: I first came across Irina Ratushinskaya's poetry when the collection 'No, I'm Not Afraid' was published in England in early May 1986. The poems, the various circumstances in which they were written and the poet's integrity, commitment and appalling situation (she was still imprisoned) all had a tremendous impact upon me. I was drawn inexorably into the world she describes so vividly. The powerful imagery of resistance, the acceptance of shattering realities and the fantasies of different kinds of escape made poetry of truly universal significance and urgency, and the idea of a setting for voice and large orchestra followed immediately. Each of the settings (in Russian) is self-contained and quite different in mood and orchestration. However, I consider the songs as one piece, and the whole cycle is performed without a break. All the basic musical material, themes and motifs for the entire work are stated in the first few pages, and the order of the poems was chosen to provide an overall musical and dramatic shape that attempts to link them together and to reflect more than the immediate meaning of the individual poems.

SKU: HL.48187531

UPC: 888680843786. 0.116 inches.

Composed by Darius Milhaud, Valaisian Quatrains is a piece for SCBT a capella, based on poems by Rainer Maria Rilke. This piece features five different parts, each one from a poem, whose lyrics are inspired by the Valais area in Switzerland. The composition includes polytonality and polyrhythms that make it highly lyrical, cheerful and nice to sing. The five poems selected are: 1. Pays, arrete a mi-chemin / Country that stops half-way... 2. Rose de lumiere / Rose of Light 3. L'annee tourne / The year revolves 4. Chemins qui ne menent nulle part / Paths that take you nowhere 5. Beau papillon / Lovely butterfly Darius Milhaud (1892-1974) was a composer and a teacher who was also known to be part of Les Six. His composition were known to use politonality and to include some characteristics drawns from the jazz genre..

SKU: ST.Y230

ISBN 9790220221736.

Commissioned with Arts Council of Wales funds by the School of European Studies, Cardiff University, for the centenary celebrations of Samuel Beckett's birth, The Flowing Sand is a setting of five poems by this seminal 20th-century modernist that are unified as a song-cycle by meaningful contrasts of mood and of musical style. The movements are 'what would I do', 'my way is in the sand', 'Da Tagte Es', 'Roundelay' and 'saying it again'. Artistically challenging, yet well within the technical range of enterprising conservatoire students, The Flowing Sand is a major addition to the repertoire of contemporary art-song by British composers, and a significant contribution to the celebrations of the writer's anniversary year.

SKU: SU.26180060

These five short pieces for solo piano were inspired by five different poems. 1. June-bug Serenade by E.E Cumming's poem spring omnipotent goddess thou dost. 2. Shadow No More by James Wright's The Shadow and the Real. 3. Demon Cloud by Edgar Allan Poe's Alone. 4. A Trace by Joseph Brodsky's Seven Strophes. 5. The Jolly Mortals by Robert Burns's See the smoking bowl before us. Five for Piano is dedicated to the memory of pianist Rowland Sturges (1917-2007), my teacher and friend, and the work's premiere performance was given by pianist Blair McMillen. Piano Duration: 10' Composed: 2006 Published by: WMC Music.

SKU: SU.80101162

This stunning collection contains five useful organ compositions based on African-American spirituals. Treatments are exciting, original, and always highly appropriate. The five movements are: The Lord Is My Shepherd, I Want Jesus to Walk with Me, I Want to Be a Christian, The Old Ship of Zion, and Bless That Wonderful Name. 24 pages Published by: Zimbel Press.