SKU: HL.50603593
ISBN 9788881920709. UPC: 840126945102. 8.0x10.5x1.3 inches. Italian-English.
Donizetti's Lucrezia Borgia was premiered at Milan's Teatro alla Scala on 26 December 1833 and is considered one of the composer's most important and innovative operas of the 1830s. Although, because of censorship issues, particularly in the south of Italy, it was initially slow to become popular, by the late 1830s it had become one of the composer's most popular operas, both in Italy and abroad, and remained an essential part of the composer's oeuvre until at least the end of the nineteenth century. Remarkable for its daring subject matter (with an unconventional, forceful heroine), it is also renowned for its challenging mixture of the comic and the tragic, something very unusual at the time and clearly an important influence on Giuseppe Verdi's middle period masterpieces. The present reduction for voice and piano derives from the critical edition of the score, recently published in this catalog: is based on Donizetti's autograph manuscript (housed in the Ricordi Archives in Milan), on the libretto for the premiere, on several printed editions of voice and piano, and on numerous additional scores of the period. It presents for the first time all the numerous additions that the composer made to the score over the course of ten years: a fascinating record of his changing music dramatic attitudes during this period. There is also a synthetic historical reconstruction of the genesis of the opera and of the description of the Sources as well as a selection of most interest to singers of Critical Commentary Notes.Rappresentata per la prima volta al Teatro alla Scala il 26 dicembre 1833, Lucrezia Borgia e considerata una fra le piu importanti e innovative opere di Donizetti. Sebbene le resistenze della censura, soprattutto nel sud Italia, ne causarono inizialmente una lenta diffusione, dalla fine degli anni '30 dell'Ottocento essa divenne uno dei lavori piu popolari e significativi del compositore e tale rimase fino alla fine del XIX secolo. Notevole per il suo audace soggetto (con un'eroina non convenzionale e dalla forte personalita) essa e rinomata anche per l'impegnativa commistione di comico e tragico, un tratto piuttosto inusuale per l'epoca, che ebbe una chiara influenza sui capolavori verdiani di meta secolo. La presente riduzione per canto e pianoforte e condotta sull'edizione critica della partitura, da poco pubblicata in questo stesso catalogo: si basa sul manoscritto autografo di Donizetti (conservato presso l'Archivio Storico Ricordi di Milano), sul libretto della prima rappresentazione, su alcune riduzioni a stampa per canto e pianoforte e su varie altre fonti dell'epoca. L'edizione presenta per la prima volta tutte le aggiunte che il compositore apporto alla partitura nel corso di dieci anni, costituendo un'affascinante testimonianza dei mutevoli approcci di Donizetti alla materia drammatico musicale durante questa fase della sua carriera. Il volume comprende una sintesi della ricostruzione della genesi storica dell'opera e della descrizione delle fonti e una selezione di Note del Commento Critico fra quelle piu funzionali alle esigenze di cantanti e pianisti accompagnatori.
SKU: PR.111402890
ISBN 9781491134672. UPC: 680160685264.
What??s in a name? While the title is French for ??Eight Flower Songs,? the texts are all in English. The poems?? flowers metaphorically evoke fragrance, love and loss, life and death, rebirth and regrowth. Perhaps the texture and beauty of Gordon??s music are themselves French. The 20-minute song cycle draws on poems from Wordsworth to Dorothy Parker, as well as from contemporary poets including the composer himself.When So-Chung Shinn came to me with the idea of commissioning a song cycle with her spectacular husband Tony Lee, she had in mind something having to do with flowers. Tony had asked her what she wanted for her birthday, and she said she wanted to be behind the creating of a new work. Lucky me, I was the recipient of the commission. So-Chung sent me a little description of all the flowers she loves, but I had to take the idea and create a narrative in my head.It is always a matter of pleasing the commissioner, yet coming up with something you can get behind and hear music for as well. I already knew I wanted to use my ??Tulips? poem which is really about the arc of a relationship as represented through the life span of the Tulips, and, in many ways, disappointment; and Dorothy Parker??s ??One Perfect Rose,? which is wry, bitter, cynical, and funny, in a way only Dorothy Parker can so pithily express.I thought of Jane Kenyon??s exquisite ??Peonies at Dusk,? because knowing she died so young (46) of leukemia, the poem has such a particular resonance, almost humanizing the Peonies, casting the moon as a sentient being, illustrating so beautifully how connected everything is, alive here, and revolving around these exquisite blossoms. Then, I remembered her husband Donald Hall??s poem ??Her Garden,? which he wrote after Jane died, his grief intermingled with his inability to care for what she had created, to keep alive what so represented her aliveness, broken as he was, and I felt I already had a story.I found the Wordsworth, because it felt like pure joy to me, but also, if each of the songs has a color in my head, ??The Daffodils? is pure yellow and a good place to start. My partner Kevin and I live on a lake, and every year, the first Daffodils, the shock of yellows, the oranges, the blinding whites, after the long snowy winters, sing of the newness that is about to enfold us in its green miraculousness.At first, the cycle ended with the Langston Hughes poem ??Cycle,? or ??New Flowers,? because it was lovely, and about rebirth, which is obviously optimistic, and apt, but then, my friend Telmo Dos Santos, a wonderful Canadian poet whom I met at Banff, sent me his poem ??Afterlife With Lilacs,? having no idea what I was working on. I felt I had to add it because it is so dazzling, and it immediately felt like the missing link. Finally, there were unfortunately rights issues, namely, we could not, no how, get in touch with the Langston Hughes Estate, after so many happy collaborations.After almost a year??s frustration, I wrote my own text, ??Play, Orpheus,? which ended up being fortuitous, because the first time I met So-Chung, she entered the room and the most exquisite scent of Lillies of the Valley, Muguet de Bois, filled the room. I went right over to her and rudely put my nose to her neck, for the intoxication of the scent. So ??Play, Orpheus? is for So-Chung, to remind us of the precious treasures of this world flowers remind us of. Everything and everyone lives and dies, lives and dies. Death and resurrection.And of course, this is music, this is song, so the inclusion of the God of music, Orpheus, seems apt. Huit Chansons de Fleurs is really about what flowers represent, their radiance, their flickering impermanence, the way they are used to celebrate, as well as to mourn...... and of course, their fragrance. Their fragrance.Ricky Ian GordonJuly 28, 2021.
SKU: BT.BWH004942
ISBN 9781846096068.
Albums of new musical works by established British and Irish composers. For players of elementary to intermediate standard.
SKU: HL.645179
ISBN 9781629060316. UPC: 008148002412. 9.0x12.0x0.117 inches. English.
Unique workbooks show how to locate and identify essential elements to make music reading easier, faster and more accurate.
