SKU: BR.EB-9087
World premiere: Bern, June 8, 1988
ISBN 9790004179604. 11.5 x 16.5 inches.
CD: Matthias Lorenz (violoncello) CD Cavalli Records CCD 247World premiere: Bern, June 8, 1988.
SKU: HL.14043771
ISBN 9788759836910. 12.0x16.75x0.44 inches. English.
Three Nocturnal Movements - For Violin Solo, Violoncello Solo And Orchestra by Per Norgard (2015). Based on Remembering Child for Viola and Orchestra(1986). Premiered by Peter Herresthal (violin) and Jakob Kullberg (cello) with Bergen Philharmonic June 6th 2015 in Bergen, Norway. The original version was premiered by Pinchas Zukerman and the St. Paul' s Chamber Orchestra, conducted by Arturo di Mecke, on September 12th 1986. Programme Note: The news of the tragic death of Samantha Smith reached me in the early stages of preparation for the commissioned work for viola and chamber orchestra. Already an admirerer of this childworker for peace and nuclear disarmament, I completed mywork strongly inspired by this unique and uniquely symbolic fate of our time. Music from humble sources - including my composition Beach Poppy , a choral work from 1960 - are woven into the texture of the composition. I was guided by the original meaning of the word remembering (making whole, healing) in opposition to dismembering (tearing apart): The healing power of the child. (Per Norgard).
SKU: VD.ED13801
ISBN 9790202028018. 12 x 9 inches.
SKU: HL.14023628
ISBN 9780711975729. 12.0x9.0x0.095 inches.
On The Fiddle consists of three pieces derived from scores to three Peter Greenaway films. The first piece Full Fathom Five, is a version of the Shakespeare song setting made for Prospero's Books (1990). The second Angelfish Decay, is an arrangement of an arrangement: the music for the speeded up time lapse decaying animal sequences in A Zed And Two Noughts (1985) was written for two violins and a harpsichord. This was subsequently 'reduced' to a violin solo for Zoo Caprices (1986). For On The Fiddle a piano part has been added. The final piece Miserere Paraphrase, was written for use in The Cook, The Thief, His Wife And Her Lover (1989), and is a transcription of Nyman's setting of the 'Miserere' text (Psalm 51) sung in the film by a boy soprano and mixed chorus. This version for cello and piano written in 1997. Duration c.15 mins.
SKU: HL.267546
This is the 2013 version (reduced strings) of Per Norgard's Remembering Child - Viola concerto No. 1 (1986) - Two Movements for Viola Solo (or Cello solo) and Chamber Orchestra. Programme Note: The title refers to the original meaning of the word remembering: Making whole. The work should not be considered as a sort of requiem for Samantha Smith - the late 13 years old fighter for nuclear disarmament - but as an evocation of the childish, creative forces in all people, young and old. Therefore the work applies thematic material of a certain dawning quality, including two Gregorian chants, appearing intertwined in the beginning of the 2. movement. And therefore the work also may be considered as a tribute to the still living child-heretics, fighting against the global lunacy ofgrown-up, such as Eamon Burke, the Australian boy, continuing, independently, the work of Samantha. REMBERING CHILD was commissioned by St. Paul Chamber Ochestra and dedicated to Pincas Zuckerman, soloist at the premiere performance(Sept. 12, 1986). Per Norgard.
SKU: HL.49046544
ISBN 9781705122655. UPC: 842819108726. 9.0x12.0x0.224 inches.
I composed the Piano Concerto in two stages: the first three movements during the years 1985-86, the next two in 1987, the final autograph of the last movement was ready by January, 1988. The concerto is dedicated to the American conductor Mario di Bonaventura. The markings of the movements are the following: 1. Vivace molto ritmico e preciso 2. Lento e deserto 3. Vivace cantabile 4. Allegro risoluto 5. Presto luminoso.The first performance of the three-movement Concerto was on October 23rd, 1986 in Graz. Mario di Bonaventura conducted while his brother, Anthony di Bonaventura, was the soloist. Two days later the performance was repeated in the Vienna Konzerthaus. After hearing the work twice, I came to the conclusion that the third movement is not an adequate finale; my feeling of form demanded continuation, a supplement. That led to the composing of the next two movements. The premiere of the whole cycle took place on February 29th, 1988, in the Vienna Konzerthaus with the same conductor and the same pianist. The orchestra consisted of the following: flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, trumpet, tenor trombone, percussion and strings. The flautist also plays the piccoIo, the clarinetist, the alto ocarina. The percussion is made up of diverse instruments, which one musician-virtuoso can play. It is more practical, however, if two or three musicians share the instruments. Besides traditional instruments the percussion part calls also for two simple wind instruments: the swanee whistle and the harmonica. The string instrument parts (two violins, viola, cello and doubles bass) can be performed soloistic since they do not contain divisi. For balance, however, the ensemble playing is recommended, for example 6-8 first violins, 6-8 second, 4-6 violas, 4-6 cellos, 3-4 double basses. In the Piano Concerto I realized new concepts of harmony and rhythm. The first movement is entirely written in bimetry: simultaneously 12/8 and 4/4 (8/8). This relates to the known triplet on a doule relation and in itself is nothing new. Because, however, I articulate 12 triola and 8 duola pulses, an entangled, up till now unheard kind of polymetry is created. The rhythm is additionally complicated because of asymmetric groupings inside two speed layers, which means accents are asymmetrically distributed. These groups, as in the talea technique, have a fixed, continuously repeating rhythmic structures of varying lengths in speed layers of 12/8 and 4/4. This means that the repeating pattern in the 12/8 level and the pattern in the 4/4 level do not coincide and continuously give a kaleidoscope of renewing combinations. In our perception we quickly resign from following particular rhythmical successions and that what is going on in time appears for us as something static, resting. This music, if it is played properly, in the right tempo and with the right accents inside particular layers, after a certain time 'rises, as it were, as a plane after taking off: the rhythmic action, too complex to be able to follow in detail, begins flying. This diffusion of individual structures into a different global structure is one of my basic compositional concepts: from the end of the fifties, from the orchestral works Apparitions and Atmospheres I continuously have been looking for new ways of resolving this basic question. The harmony of the first movement is based on mixtures, hence on the parallel leading of voices. This technique is used here in a rather simple form; later in the fourth movement it will be considerably developed. The second movement (the only slow one amongst five movements) also has a talea type of structure, it is however much simpler rhythmically, because it contains only one speed layer. The melody is consisted in the development of a rigorous interval mode in which two minor seconds and one major second alternate therefore nine notes inside an octave. This mode is transposed into different degrees and it also determines the harmony of the movement; however, in closing episode in the piano part there is a combination of diatonics (white keys) and pentatonics (black keys) led in brilliant, sparkling quasimixtures, while the orchestra continues to play in the nine tone mode. In this movement I used isolated sounds and extreme registers (piccolo in a very low register, bassoon in a very high register, canons played by the swanee whistle, the alto ocarina and brass with a harmon-mute' damper, cutting sound combinations of the piccolo, clarinet and oboe in an extremely high register, also alternating of a whistle-siren and xylophone). The third movement also has one speed layer and because of this it appears as simpler than the first, but actually the rhythm is very complicated in a different way here. Above the uninterrupted, fast and regular basic pulse, thanks to the asymmetric distribution of accents, different types of hemiolas and inherent melodical patterns appear (the term was coined by Gerhard Kubik in relation to central African music). If this movement is played with the adequate speed and with very clear accentuation, illusory rhythmic-melodical figures appear. These figures are not played directly; they do not appear in the score, but exist only in our perception as a result of co-operation of different voices. Already earlier I had experimented with illusory rhythmics, namely in Poeme symphonique for 100 metronomes (1962), in Continuum for harpsichord (1968), in Monument for two pianos (1976), and especially in the first and sixth piano etude Desordre and Automne a Varsovie (1985). The third movement of the Piano Concerto is up to now the clearest example of illusory rhythmics and illusory melody. In intervallic and chordal structure this movement is based on alternation, and also inter-relation of various modal and quasi-equidistant harmony spaces. The tempered twelve-part division of the octave allows for diatonical and other modal interval successions, which are not equidistant, but are based on the alternation of major and minor seconds in different groups. The tempered system also allows for the use of the anhemitonic pentatonic scale (the black keys of the piano). From equidistant scales, therefore interval formations which are based on the division of an octave in equal distances, the twelve-tone tempered system allows only chromatics (only minor seconds) and the six-tone scale (the whole-tone: only major seconds). Moreover, the division of the octave into four parts only minor thirds) and three parts (three major thirds) is possible. In several music cultures different equidistant divisions of an octave are accepted, for example, in the Javanese slendro into five parts, in Melanesia into seven parts, popular also in southeastern Asia, and apart from this, in southern Africa. This does not mean an exact equidistance: there is a certain tolerance for the inaccurateness of the interval tuning. These exotic for us, Europeans, harmony and melody have attracted me for several years. However I did not want to re-tune the piano (microtone deviations appear in the concerto only in a few places in the horn and trombone parts led in natural tones). After the period of experimenting, I got to pseudo- or quasiequidistant intervals, which is neither whole-tone nor chromatic: in the twelve-tone system, two whole-tone scales are possible, shifted a minor second apart from each other. Therefore, I connect these two scales (or sound resources), and for example, places occur where the melodies and figurations in the piano part are created from both whole tone scales; in one band one six-tone sound resource is utilized, and in the other hand, the complementary. In this way whole-tonality and chromaticism mutually reduce themselves: a type of deformed equidistancism is formed, strangely brilliant and at the same time slanting; illusory harmony, indeed being created inside the tempered twelve-tone system, but in sound quality not belonging to it anymore. The appearance of such slantedequidistant harmony fields alternating with modal fields and based on chords built on fifths (mainly in the piano part), complemented with mixtures built on fifths in the orchestra, gives this movement an individual, soft-metallic colour (a metallic sound resulting from harmonics). The fourth movement was meant to be the central movement of the Concerto. Its melodc-rhythmic elements (embryos or fragments of motives) in themselves are simple. The movement also begins simply, with a succession of overlapping of these elements in the mixture type structures. Also here a kaleidoscope is created, due to a limited number of these elements - of these pebbles in the kaleidoscope - which continuously return in augmentations and diminutions. Step by step, however, so that in the beginning we cannot hear it, a compiled rhythmic organization of the talea type gradually comes into daylight, based on the simultaneity of two mutually shifted to each other speed layers (also triplet and duoles, however, with different asymmetric structures than in the first movement). While longer rests are gradually filled in with motive fragments, we slowly come to the conclusion that we have found ourselves inside a rhythmic-melodical whirl: without change in tempo, only through increasing the density of the musical events, a rotation is created in the stream of successive and compiled, augmented and diminished motive fragments, and increasing the density suggests acceleration. Thanks to the periodical structure of the composition, always new but however of the same (all the motivic cells are similar to earlier ones but none of them are exactly repeated; the general structure is therefore self-similar), an impression is created of a gigantic, indissoluble network. Also, rhythmic structures at first hidden gradually begin to emerge, two independent speed layers with their various internal accentuations. This great, self-similar whirl in a very indirect way relates to musical associations, which came to my mind while watching the graphic projection of the mathematical sets of Julia and of Mandelbrot made with the help of a computer. I saw these wonderful pictures of fractal creations, made by scientists from Brema, Peitgen and Richter, for the first time in 1984. From that time they have played a great role in my musical concepts. This does not mean, however, that composing the fourth movement I used mathematical methods or iterative calculus; indeed, I did use constructions which, however, are not based on mathematical thinking, but are rather craftman's constructions (in this respect, my attitude towards mathematics is similar to that of the graphic artist Maurits Escher). I am concerned rather with intuitional, poetic, synesthetic correspondence, not on the scientific, but on the poetic level of thinking. The fifth, very short Presto movement is harmonically very simple, but all the more complicated in its rhythmic structure: it is based on the further development of ''inherent patterns of the third movement. The quasi-equidistance system dominates harmonically and melodically in this movement, as in the third, alternating with harmonic fields, which are based on the division of the chromatic whole into diatonics and anhemitonic pentatonics. Polyrhythms and harmonic mixtures reach their greatest density, and at the same time this movement is strikingly light, enlightened with very bright colours: at first it seems chaotic, but after listening to it for a few times it is easy to grasp its content: many autonomous but self-similar figures which crossing themselves. I present my artistic credo in the Piano Concerto: I demonstrate my independence from criteria of the traditional avantgarde, as well as the fashionable postmodernism. Musical illusions which I consider to be also so important are not a goal in itself for me, but a foundation for my aesthetical attitude. I prefer musical forms which have a more object-like than processual character. Music as frozen time, as an object in imaginary space evoked by music in our imagination, as a creation which really develops in time, but in imagination it exists simultaneously in all its moments. The spell of time, the enduring its passing by, closing it in a moment of the present is my main intention as a composer. (Gyorgy Ligeti).
SKU: BT.WH32021
English.
This is the 2013 version (reduced strings) of Per Nørgård's Remembering Child - Viola concerto No. 1 (1986) - Two Movements for Viola Solo (or Cello solo) and Chamber Orchestra. Programme Note: The title refers to the original meaning of the word remembering: Making whole. The work should not be considered as a sort of requiem for Samantha Smith - the late 13 years old fighter for nuclear disarmament - but as an evocation of the childish, creative forces in all people, young and old. Therefore the work applies thematic material of a certain dawning quality, including two Gregorian chants, appearing intertwined in the beginning of the 2. movement. And therefore the workalso may be considered as a tribute to the still living child-heretics, fighting against the global lunacy of grown-up, such as Eamon Burke, the Australian boy, continuing, independently, the work of Samantha. REMBERING CHILD was commissioned by St. Paul Chamber Ochestra and dedicated to Pincas Zuckerman, soloist at the premiere performance (Sept. 12, 1986). Per Nørgård.
SKU: BT.EMBZ13181
English-German-Hungarian.
SKU: HL.48025250
UPC: 196288142942.
The composer and conductor Oliver Knussen (1952 - 2018) was loved by many companions for his generosity and musical intellect. To Detlev Glanert, whose works he loved to perform, he was a friend and one of his 'personal heroes'. By his own admission, he learned attention to detail from 'Olly', with whom he worked at Tanglewood as early as 1986. If Glanert's Trumpet Concerto, composed in 2018, is the large-scale symphonic homage to his role model, the solo “Little Letter to Olly” does the same in a small format. Two elegiac adagio sections frame a boisterous presto with all kinds of virtuoso tricks. The 'Letter without Words' owes its existence to a suggestion by the cellist Anssi Karttunen, who asked for commemorative pieces for Knussen's 70th birthday from a number of composers and premiered them at the Aldeburgh Festival 2022.
SKU: HL.49001516
ISBN 9790001017619. UPC: 884088098018. 9.0x12.0x0.145 inches.
As to style, the concerto discovered in Naples in 1986 is close to the well-known concerto in Bb major; it was most likely created at the same -time. The carefully edited publication offers the original text. The indication of the solo part and the cadence are made by Julius Berger.
SKU: HL.14023207
ISBN 9788759862216.
Work for Solo Cello composed in 1986.
SKU: HL.50565821
Born in 1950, Laurent Petitgirard studied the piano with Serge Petitgirard and composition with Alain Kremski. His catalogue includes more than twenty symphonic ad chambre music works, an opera and more than one hundred and sixty film scores. From 1989 to 1996 he was founded and musical director of the Orchestre Symphonique Francais, and, since 2005, has been the music director of the Orchestre Colonne in Paris. He has also made more than 30 records, and from 1986 to 1997 directed the Festival and the Summer Music Academy of Flaine.
SKU: HL.50601598
8.0x11.75 inches.
The catalogue of Edison Denisov's works includes 16 concertos. It was a genre to which he returned time and again throughout his life, from the Concerto for Cello and Orchestra of 1972 to the Double Concerto for Flute, Clarinet and Orchestra of 1996.In Denisov's music the role of the soloist, or rather the protagonist, is extraordinarily important, not so much for its virtuosity as for its confessional character. The solo part is a monologue distinguished by poetic diction and a very personal message from thecomposer. The dramaturgical conception of the Concerto for Saxophone and Orchestra, a reworking of the Viola Concerto of 1986, draws on traditional sonata form, thereby reaffirming the ubiquitous classicism in Denisov's thought. In this late work, we find all the typical features of his style: sinuous melodic lines layered into dense contrapuntal textures, and an interplay of orchestral colours, with pure sonorities contrasting with complex mixtures of sounds. It is a perfect dramaturgy that governs the evolution of the music to the very end. The first movement assumes the role of a sonata-allegro, with the standard formal sections of exposition, development,recapitulation and coda. The second movement is an Adagio for strings. The third takes the form of a little contrasting intermezzo that introduces both new thematic material and a new range of colours. Here tunefulness gives way to pointillism enriched with soniceffects. The only movement with a virtuosic solo part, its nervousness and inner tension set it worlds apart from the second and fourth movements that surround it. The fourth movement assumes the traditional form of a final set of variations. It is the dramaturgical and semantic heart of the concerto. The theme of the variations is Franz Schubert's Impromptu in B-flat major, op. 142, which in this case is 'born' from the celesta as the product of a dodecaphonic string cluster. This finale represents Denisov's homage to his great mentor, Schubert's music being for him a symbol of eternal and universal beauty. 'The attentive listener', Denisov stressed, 'will recognise that the Impromptu theme is already suggested very slowly in the course of the three preceding movements, not only thematically, but also psychologically. That's what makes the appearance of the Schubert theme sound so natural.' The variations relate to the variation genre less in their form than in their spiritual and conceptual metamorphoses. It is, one might say, 'music round about Schubert'. (Ekaterina Kouprovskaia-Denisova).
SKU: MH.1-59913-064-5
ISBN 9781599130644.
I wrote Galloping Ghosts (A Ragtime March) to conclude a concert of my chamber music in New York City on October 28, 1986. It is the final part of a work called Rags for Divers Players. This work was written to show the variety possible within the standard rag form. I used all the players available for the finale -- two violins, viola, cello, bass, flute, oboe, clarinet, horn, bassoon, and piano. Since this is a rather unusual instrumental combination and not easy to reassemble, I decided to rescore the work for concert band. Galloping Ghosts is written in a standard march form but incorporates many of the syncopations found in ragtime. The uniquely American music called ragtime traces its history to African rhythms brought over by slaves. Over the years this music became welded to European musical forms such as the quadrille and the march. Drums and banjos and the minstrel tradition lent a special flavor, and from all these elements ragtime slowly evolved within the largely unknown black subculture of the late 19th century. In the late 1890's it emerged as a fully developed form in the classic piano solos of Scott Joplin (1869-1917). Joplin's 1899 hit, Maple Leaf Rag, was an overnight sensation and brought ragtime worldwide fame. Ensemble instrumentation: 1 Piccolo, 8 Flute 1 & 2, 2 Oboe, 1 Eb Clarinet, 4 Bb Clarinet 1, 4 Bb Clarinet 2, 4 Bb Clarinet 3, 2 Eb Alto Clarinet, 3 Bb Bass & Bb Contrabass Clarinet, 2 Bassoon 1 & 2, 2 Eb Alto Saxophone 1, 2 Eb Alto Saxophone 2, 2 Bb Tenor Saxophone, 1 Eb Baritone Saxophone, 3 Bb Cornet 1, 3 Bb Cornet 2, 3 Bb Cornet 3, 2 Horn 1 & 2 in F, 2 Horn 3 & 4 in F, 4 Trombone 1 & 2, 4 Bass Trombone, 2 Baritone (B.C.), 2 Baritone (T.C.), 4 Tuba, 1 String Bass, 1 Timpani, 1 Xylophone, 3 Percussion 1, 3 Percussion 2.
SKU: HL.14021025
ISBN 9780711986138. 5.5x7.5x0.164 inches.
Miniature Score. This work was commissioned by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. It was first performed on 13th May 1998 London. This piece is based on a genuine old tune 'Maxwell's Strathspey' which the composer found in an 1824 collection of Scottish melodies, and which unfolds at the start of the piece on solo cello. Variations and a bold up-tempo to the quick dance we know as a reel ultimately yield to the magic that has been promised right at the start: the northern lights take over at the end of the piece. Its inspiration comes from a walk to a community event in Hoy Hall, during which Davies saw the lights in the sky pulsing in and out of time with the sounds coming from the hall. Duration 12 minutes. Conductor's score and orchestral parts are available on hire.
SKU: CA.4066414
ISBN 9790007219864. Key: B flat major. Language: Latin.
The House of Esterhazy commissioned what are probably some of the most important masses to be written at the turn of the 18th to the 19th century: Joseph Haydn's last, six great masses, Beethoven's Mass in C major and the masses of Johann Nepomuk Hummel. The resonance in the contemporary musical press upon the publication of the B flat major Mass of 1816/17, Hummel's first Esterhazy mass, was exceptionally positive. In addition to the rather simply constructed wind parts, which can also be played by the organ, the work places greater demands on the strings and choir (without soloists) to master an effect-laden, expressive diversity ranging from pastoral simplicity and martial trumpet calls to artistically wrought fugues which is rarely encountered. The present new edition offers the first scholarly-critical edition of the work in a reliable musical text, including performance material. Score and part available separately - see item CA.4066400.
SKU: CA.2300314
ISBN 9790007198626. Language: German/English.
In honor of the 150th anniversary of the death of Louis Spohr, for the first time Carus is publishing a critical edition of The Last Judgment, the most important of his four oratorios. It was first performed on Good Friday, 1826 in Kassel. It is based on the theologically most significant portions of the Revelations of John in the New Testament, whose visions of death and eternity Spohr vividly portrayed in music. The work represents an important enrichment to the repertoire of the oratorio, especially suitable for the end of the church year. It is captivating on account of its masterful instrumentation, excellent use of chromaticism, large-scale solo recitatives and accessible choral passages filled with heartfelt sensitivity on the one hand, and exciting drama on the other. Score and part available separately - see item CA.2300300.