SKU: BT.MUSVWP000046
UPC: 890346001478.
Henryk Wieniawski's Scherzo Tarantella for viola and piano, transcribed by Alan Arnold.
SKU: HL.48024561
ISBN 9781784543518. 0.078 inches.
This Sonata for Viola (unaccompanied) was written in 1999. The soloists C-string is tuned down a semitone for the entire piece, giving a duskier quality to the tone-colour, and setting up in the very first bar the characteristic melodic/harmonic shape that infiltrates all four movements. I - slowish and thoughtful - gradually expands this opening idea into cantilena and pattern, as prelude to II - Vivacissimo - played muted throughout, a tremolando tarantella, with contrasting section, chunky double-stops, alternating withsomething of a gigue. III - adagio - rhapsodic and quasi-improvisando, enclosing a simple self-contained melody, and linking into IV, where the gigue-like material from the scherzo provides the principal substance, expanding into an ardent cantabile, and calminginto the Coda not just the finale but, in its reminiscences of I, to the sonata as a whole.
SKU: BA.BA09378
ISBN 9790006539086. 32.5 x 25.5 cm inches.
A modern sequel to the music of the Romantic era. The first movement hints at the chromatic of “Tristan”; cantilena lines convey a mournful scene. It is succeeded by a brilliant scherzo with the cryptic title “Erste fremde Szene” (First Foreign/Unknown Scene – one is invited to solve this riddle), while the third movement, with its singing quality, is related to the first. The final movement, a “Zweite fremde Szene” (“Second Foreign/Unknown Scene”), alludes to the “last dance” tradition, with its ironic undertones and the copious use of sixths, counterpointed with tarantella rhythms. A rewarding, striking work, equally valuable for concerts combining older compositions with new works as for contemporary music programmes.
SKU: PR.416414950
UPC: 680160617784. 8.5 x 11 inches.
Inner Demons depicts a man as he loses his mind. This piece contains four themes: a tarantella, a demented waltz, a scherzo, and the Appalachian folk hymn “The Wayfaring Stranger.” The themes are stated quite briskly until arriving at the hymn. This theme consumes the man; it destroys his mind and he melts down. As his mind is slowly rebuilt, his thoughts become increasingly chaotic, until elements of all four themes are heard simultaneously. Inner Demons is an arrangement of movements III and II (in that order) of Garrop’s String Quartet No. 2: Demons and Angels .
