SKU: BR.EB-9243
ISBN 9790004185438. 9 x 12 inches.
It was the practice of Khoomii (throat singing) - following several workshops with Michael Ormiston - that first attracted me to Tuvan music. Composing this Songbook, the first in a series commissioned by the Ligeti Quartet, I took the chance to reflect on compositional questions around transcription and arrangement of existing music, and frequently found myself asking: where is the boundary between the source material and the new substance? Of course the relationship varies from piece to piece, and moment to moment: sometimes we seem to glimpse the pure source, but most of the time there are differing degrees of distance, working towards or away from it. This new version for string orchestra corresponds closely to the original quartet version, with an additional part for double basses.The traditional Tuvan songs that I have transcribed and recomposed are all known to me from the Ay Kherel CD The Music of Tuva: Throat Singing and Instruments from Central Asia (2004, Arc Music). According to the notes from that CD, this is what the songs are about:1. Dyngylday: If you have come on a horse in blue, it doesn't mean that you are the best. My heart tells me something else: my sweetheart doesn't have such a beautiful horse, but he is my darling.An alternative interpretation from Alash Ensemble (alashensemble.com): The word dyngylday is a nonsense term with no translation. The song makes good-humored fun of somebody for being a good-for-nothing.2. Eki Attar (The Best Steeds): The horse is the basis of our life. It is a magic creature. Even its step is full of music and rhythm. You may not be a horse rider, but when you hear this song you will always remember horses.3. Kuda Yry: This wedding song glorifies the strength of the groom and the beauty of his Horse.4. Ezir-Kara ('Black Eagle'): This was the name of a horse, who became a legend through his remarkable strength and speed.It is not just overtones that abound here: there are galloping rhythms aplenty, and though I am no horse rider I tried to keep the horses galloping in my imagination while composing these pieces.Christian Mason (with quotes from Ay Kherel and Alash Ensemble)World premiere of the original version: London/UK, May 10, 2016, World premiere of the string orchestra version: Clermont-Ferrand/France, October 8, 2020.
SKU: XC.SB2219
ISBN 9781644021286. 9 x 12 inches.
Adaptable Quartets for Christmas contains 22 newly arranged quartets written at grades 1.5 to 3. Since it’s creation in 2019, Tyler Arcari and Matthew R. Putnam’s Adaptable Ensemble series has emerged as a leading resource in flexible instrumentation and this new addition to the series for Christmastime is no exception. Designed to be used with any combination of four instruments, the possible combinations are endless! Play these quartets as traditional four instrument chamber works, or expand your instrumentation to include the entire ensemble. Tyler and Matthew use their experience as music educators to craft quartets that are fun to play, and musically stimulating.
SKU: BT.EMBZ14872
The three movements reflect classical romantic concertos in not only their structure but also their character. The relations between soloist and orchestra echo the dramatic composition of traditional concertos besides providing a significant role for wind and percussion instruments in tonality, which creates a specific tone familiar from László Dubrovay's earlier compositions. His Violin Concerto No. 2, completed in April 2011, is dedicated to the internationally noted young Hungarian violinist, Kristóf Baráti, whose extraordinary performing skills inspired the flexible melodiousness and virtuoso perfection of the themes.
SKU: FG.55011-824-9
ISBN 9790550118249.
Mikko Heiniö's Alla madre (2007) abandons the traditional virtuoso concerto concept: here a large orchestra engages in dialogue with a solo violin. The first movement is called Arrivo, “Arrival: the soloist literally arrives later, and by degrees, playing his/her first two solos offstage. Even then the orchestra continues to take the initiative for a long time. Not until the second movement, entitled Aura, “Air or Wind, does the initiative pass to the solo violin as it sets light to notes in the orchestra harmony like individual lamps. And not until the end of the second movement and the beginning of the third does the solo violin play completely on its own. The title of the first movement, “Arrival, underlines the event, the dramaturgy, whereas that of the second movement, “Aura, alludes to the texture and the shimmering space. The third movement is the most strongly emotional, as the name Carezza, “Caress suggests.This product includes the solo part and the piano reduction (B4 sized).The orchestral material is available from the publisher. The orchestration: 3(III+picc)3(III+ca)3(III=bcl)3(III=cfg)-4331-13-hp-str.
SKU: PR.114422680
ISBN 9781491136041. UPC: 680160688197.
TACHUN (SPRING OUTING) was composed in 2021 for “The Joy Project,” to commission uplifting works for performance at free outdoor concerts in the San Francisco Bay region. The work’s title comes from the annual Chinese festival when people go outdoors and travel, to welcome the arrival of the new Spring season. This cheerful 5-minute work features energetic melodic lines in unison, contrasting with vivid rhythmic patterns, which the composer indicates as expressing our excitement upon breathing the fresh Spring air.Tachun (Spring Outing) was commissioned by and dedicated to the Del Sol String Quartet as a part of The Joy Project in 2021. Tachun is also the name of a Chinese traditional festival when people go outdoors and travel, to welcome the arrival of the new spring season each year. Here is a statement from the Del Sol String Quartet about this project:“Del Sol has commissioned a body of short musical works written to give joy. As our gift to our community during these times, we are performing these pieces in numerous free concerts at public settings around the Bay Area — parks, schoolyards, open spaces — where people can soak up some musical “joy” while safely practicing social distancing in the open air.”My string quartet has active melodic lines in unison, contrasting with vivid rhythmic patterns, to express our excitement when we breathe the fresh air.
SKU: HL.44007130
ISBN 9789043117951. UPC: 884088167981. International (more than one language).
Oldies but goodies - this book contains a selection of evergreens and folk songs that everyone will know and love. Golden Tunes for Violin ist ein Buch, das fur Stunden voll Mitspiel-Spass sorgt. Zehn bekannte Melodien unterstutzen mit der Begleit-CD die Entwicklung zum Solisten.Von Yankee Doodle bis zu La Bamba sind Erfolg und Spass bei der Vorfuhrung der erlernten Kunste garantiert!
SKU: BR.EB-9244
ISBN 9790004185445. 9 x 12 inches.
SKU: PR.414411630
ISBN 9781491114551. UPC: 680160089956. 9.5 x 13 inches.
EXCURSIONS is a one-movement work exploring two “characters.” A rhapsodic, descending passage is introduced by the cello, followed by a static, chorale-like phrase for the violin and cello. Their individual developments are separated by a slow, contrasting middle section. The composer has written: “This is analogous to situations in life: we stand by a crossroad, choosing one option and forfeiting the other. But in art, the realm of the imagination, we can perhaps afford to pursue more than one route to its ultimate destination… or can we? It is symbolic that in this work both roads eventually lead to the same place.”.Excursions for violin, cello and piano, is a one-movement work of tripartite structure in which materials explored in the first of three large sections are brought back in the last section. The traditional statement-contrast-restatement form, which is readily suggested by such a description, is, however, not at all in the mold in which the work is cast. Rather, my aim was to subject the essential materials of the piece (two “characters” –the rhapsodic, descending passage played by the cello in the very opening and, later, a static, slow moving, chorale-like phrase for the violin and cello) to two entirely different developments separated by a slow, contrasting middle section. This is analogous to an exploration of the ramifications that two divergent choices made by the same person might lead to. In life, as we stand by a crossroad, choosing one option usually means having to forfeit the other. But in art, the realm of the imagination, we can perhaps afford to pursue more than one route to its ultimate destination…or can we? It is, I believe, symbolic that in this work both roads eventually lead to the same place: in composing Excursions, it seemed absolutely inescapable that at the end the slow, contrasting middle sections – both more resigned and peaceful than the battling spirits of the outer parts – should return briefly to end the work. The piano trio combination (once highly favored, but to this composer still as challenging today) is approached here as a collaborative effort of three equal soloists – partners. Of the available pairings, the two strings find themselves occasionally approached as a team pitted against the piano. The cello-piano combination is also not uncommon here, and there is an extended violin cadenza toward the end of the piece. The writing for the three instruments is closely and at times interlinked, but the players are all instructed to play from scores. Excursions was first performed at Brandeis University in 1982.
SKU: BR.PB-32032-07
ISBN 9790004215661. 6.5 x 9 inches.
Invaluable Glimpses Schumann's close collaboration with the David quartet, together with the valuable advice of his friend Mendelssohn Bartholdy, led the composer to make extensive changes to the Streichquartette op. 41 before publication in December 1842. The present edition is hence to be thought of as a critical Urtext edition; it offers in fact to those interested, an invaluable glimpse into Schumann's creative process and his striving for the final form of his string quartets. All the deletions, changes, and the original phrasing were carefully worked out in detail, restored, and editorially identified in the music text. A detailed preface giving the geneses of the works, as well as pages of the autograph score in facsimile, complement the edition. The parts are of course so configured in the reliable Breitkopf quality that the quartets can also be performed today in the traditional form. The present edition was also used for the Leipzig String Quartet's 2010 CD recording.
SKU: AP.1-ADV6201
ISBN 9783892213628. UPC: 805095062014. English.
Ten Klezmer Duos, Vol. 1 contains six traditional Klezmer songs and four original compositions. Titles: Boruch Ato Bo'ir * Miserlou * Rumanian Hora, Chusidl & Bulgar * Alcazaba * Hey Judah * Andalucian Lily * Rebn's Tanz * Khyberian Catfit * Street Song * Yoshke, Yoshke.
SKU: HL.370494
ISBN 9781705147009. UPC: 840126994025.
The First String Quartet in C major, Op. 37, was written in the autumn of 1917 and earned Szymanowski the first prize in a competition organized by the Ministry of Religious and in a competition organized by the Ministry of Religious and Educational Affairs in January 1922. The First String Quartet is notable for its clar and simple construction. The first movement is in the formof a sonata allegro; the Andantino semplice (in modo iuna canzone) in the middle is a cross between ternary and variation form. The final Scherzando alla burlesca also keeps to the form of a sonata allegro. The combinations and proportions of formal factors and the treatment of thematic material betray a fairly conventional adoption of classical models. Similarly, the expressive and structural use of melodic material shows a respect for traditional norms. Szymanowski created, in other works from the same period, his own individual type of melodic line, which was strongly expressive and achieved its effect chiefly by its tonal qualieties; nevertheless in this Quartet he returns to a fluid, cantilena-like, symmetrically shaped melodic line, which runs along in broad phrases of a concentrated, reflective character. Melody becomes the chief factor in the development of the form, both in thematic usage and in the application of a more polyphonic texture. Harmonic and tonal means are considerably simplified in the Quartet []. Most of the writing is linear, or horizontal, with individual treatment of each part, the parallel continuation of the four sound planes, almost a matter of principle. The functions of the particular instruments in realizing these planes are constantly changing,which accounts for the even greater variedy of tone-colour. The decision to forego experiment with forms and sonorities is reflectedin the overall approach to musical expression. The predominant atmosphere of restrained emotion, quiet lyricism and serenity is strongly suggestive of classical aestetic models. (Based on Zofia Helman Commentary on Szymanowski Complete Edition, Vol. B6) (II) The ''Second String Quartet'' represents an interesting attempt to revert to classical form coupled with the new harmonic and tonal vocabulary worked out previously in the ''Slopiewnie'', ''Stabat Mater'' and ''Mazurkas''. It was also the first time the composer had used folk elements in the framework of a major classical form. The ''Second String Quartet'' is in a special category among Szymanowski's works. Though it dates from the composer was still occupied with folk music, it nevertheless shows him returning to classical models, but at the same time using an aesthetic of subjective expression, which gives the work its own individual stamp. The ''Second String Quartet'' synthesis of the various directions in which Szymanowski was attempting to develop. The sonority and texture used in the first.