SKU: PR.110418140
ISBN 9781491129432. UPC: 680160640379.
Mathe son’s five-movement work is a setting of stained glass windows created by Marc Chagall and Henri Matisse for a rustic country church adjoining the Rockefeller estate near Sleepy Hollow on the Hudson River. Matheson’s suite draws from four Chagall windows: 1. Jeremiah, 2. Isaiah, 3. Crucifixion, 4. The Good Samaritan, and culminates with Matisse’s 5. The Rose.In 1954, the Rockefeller family asked Henri Matisse to create a stained glass Rose Window for the Union Church of Pocantico Hills, New York as a memorial to Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, the great art patroness and a founder of the Museum of Modern Art. It was to be the artist’s last work. A few years later, Mrs. Rockefeller’s youngest son, David, acting on behalf of the family, commissioned Marc Chagall to create an entire series of stained glass windows to fill the rest of the small church resulting in the large, majestic “Good Samaritan” window and eight sublime smaller windows, each depicting a biblical figure or scene. In 2015, Premiere Commission commissioned James Matheson to compose WINDOWS to celebrate the centennial of the Union Church of Pocantico Hills and the 100th birthday of David Rockefeller. This deeply touching, epic cycle distills into music the intimate, often heart-rending, visions of Chagall as well as the powerful simplicity of Matisse’s modern design which utilizes the striking collage forms he employed in his final years. Matheson’s work also reflects the influence of Olivier Messiaen’s own theologically-inspired music. Like the French master, Matheson utilizes large-scale blocks of harmonies with organ-like sonorities to support and shift the music’s kaleidoscopic planes of color and set into relief the work’s piercing motifs and intricate patterns. The universal themes of love and sacrifice (“Jeremiah” and “Isaiah”), loss and altruism (“Crucifixion” and “The Good Samaritan”) and the jubilant celebration of life and nature (“The Rose”) are memorably portrayed in this poignant tribute to the human spirit.—Bruce Levingston.
SKU: ST.C463
ISBN 9790570814633.
This volume contains contrasting works by Federico Ruiz spanning quite a large and rich period of his compositional output that goes from his early Micro-Suite (1971), to lilting, sweet and rhythmic Venezuelan waltzes passing by the mysterious, intimate, and intense Nocturno (1994) plus pieces originally composed for film, and theatre. Real eclecticism in styles, moods and atmospheres that show Ruiz??s talents and scope.The Nocturno is a deep, intriguing, substantial piece presenting a satisfying length which moves from different paths of the mind and the heart written in an abstract, chromatic idiom, that does not dissociate itself from the Venezuelan waltz and the joropo. One could perhaps say that there is a deconstruction of the latter. For the interpretation, the composer has suggested to me that it is allowed to have some flexibility in the tempo. Ruiz kindly dedicated it to me, and I have had the pleasure of performing it in many concerts.Although all highly expressive, the Three Venezuelan Waltzes present in this collection as well as the piece titled Aliseo, are works that are close to the colourful Venezuelan folk tradition. Federico Ruiz had given me two of them when we first met: ??Tu Presencia?? (1981) and ??Eloísa?? (1989) and then I attended a performance of the play ??Office Number One?? by Miguel Otero Silva with a fantastic actor, Elba Escobar in the role of Carmen Rosa and, I just fell in love and was very moved by the incidental music that I later discovered, by reading the programme, had been written by Federico Ruiz. Later that evening, I called him and asked to please make a piano score of the composition, so I could have the desired piece in my hands. That is how ??Carmen Rosa? waltz (1987) came to exist in a piano version.??Eloisa ?? is another Venezuelan waltz with more jazzy harmonies where precision in the rhythm and elegant playing is also essential, as it is in most of his pieces.??Tu Presencia?? was dedicated to his mother, Margarita. It is written with the structure of the Venezuelan waltz, which consists of a nostalgic subject that leads to a faster, happier middle section where the typical graceful rhythm is given by the left-hand accompaniment figure of a dotted crotchet followed by a quaver and a crotchet.The craft and magic found in the five movements of the Micro-Suite is based on a dodecaphonic row by Ernst Krenek. They remind us of the idiom of the Second Viennese School. These real miniatures seem to tell short stories. The ??Preludio?? is full of humour. I imagine dancing figures given by the jumps all over the keyboard and extreme dynamics; the phrases give the impression of a conversation with many questions and answers. The ??Invención?? is a kaleidoscopic piece where the hands mirror each other. The ??Passacaglia?? is the longest movement, at just over a minute where the prime motif is repeated three times on the bass line. For its construction Federico Ruiz uses as well the retrograde and the retrograde inversion of the twelve-tone series. It must be played expressively with dynamic contrasts between pianissimo and louder events. The ??Scherzo?? has repetitive motifs of a minor third in both hands and the ??Final?? displays virtuosic passages for the pianist.Aliseo was originally written for the film ??Aire libre? (1995), by Luis Armando Roche. It contains elements of diverse types of Venezuelan joropo. In the film, the character of Aliseo Carvallo is played by the composer himself who performs this piece on a harpsichord to welcome scientists Alexander von Humboldt and Aimé Bonpland one day at the turn of the 1800??s, as a sample of the new music from the South American land. It presents the refinement of the late European classical era in fusion with Venezuelan folk music.
SKU: PR.41641423L
UPC: 680160602094. 11 x 14 inches.
Colonnade is inspired by Albanys majestic New York State Board of Education Building, and written on a commission from the Albany Symphony Orchestra. It was an intriguing task, in part because in order to accept the commission I had to agree to write a work inspired by a building I had not yet seen. This problem was compounded by the fact that, for me, the very notion of extra-musical inspiration is a complex one, particularly with respect to literary or visual sources. I generally find ideas and abstracted notions more generative of musical ideas than specific ones (a poem, an experience, a painting). So when I went to see and tour the building, I sought to identify fundamental formal aspects of the building which I could process into musical ideas, and would then be linked to the building through a sense of formal relationship. In the end, two characteristics of the building stood out as noteworthy and undiminished by time (compared with, for instance, the buildings rotunda, which contains a series of quaintly outdated allegorical paintings): the exterior colonnade and a beautiful interior vaulted ceiling, designed by Rafael Guastavino. For me, a colonnade acts as a metaphor for the tension between knowledge and perception. We all know, for instance, that the columns are of the same height and are equidistant from each other. Nevertheless, while the mind understands this fully, it is also the case that there exists no place no standpoint or viewpoint anywhere in the universe from which one can perceive this; the columns always appear to be of uneven height and spacing. If one then adds motion to perspective a walk along the colonnade, for instance the fixed, even, rigidly identical columns acquire elasticity, and begin to change kaleidoscopically they shrink, grow, become closer, and then further apart. Further, the detail of the buildings facade behind the colonnade shifts into and out of visibility, with different portions obscured by the columns from each vantage point. These considerations underlie the outer sections of Colonnade, in which a continuously repeated, continuously varied rising figure suggestive of a column dominates. The iterations of this elastic, evolving figure are interspersed with other music suggestive of the buildings facade. The second feature of the building that caught my attention was the vaulted ceiling, designed by Guastavino, of one of the buildings largest rooms. The ceiling enhances the spaciousness of the room, giving it an openness and lightness that is quite captivating. The middle section of Colonnade has this openness at its core, and is dominated by long, arching lines that, to me, suggest the refined beauty of this ceiling. World premiere March 8, 2003; Albany Symphony Orchestra conducted by David Alan Miller.
SKU: OU.9780193530157
ISBN 9780193530157. 12 x 8 inches.
Featured on pianist William Howard's album Sixteen Contemporary Love Songs, this evocative miniature is simple but rewarding, with a repeating eight-bar chord progression that produces a kaleidoscopic quality.
SKU: AP.47415
UPC: 038081547558. English.
A theme-and-fantasy-variati ons treatment of the traditional church hymn Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing. A quiet traditional opening introduces a set of fantasy-like episodes, creating a kaleidoscopic musical journey that culminates in a stately chorale treatment of the theme. Brilliant!
SKU: FG.55011-605-4
ISBN 9790550116054.
Mikk o Heinio (b. 1948) composed his Sonata for Guitar (2019) the instrument in his lap. The inspiring cooperation with the guitarist Patrik Kleemola can be heard throughout the four-movement sonata. The first (Intro) and last (Coda) have the same tempo but the former is kaleidoscopic and the latter an unbroken ribbon. Correspondingly, the second (Rubato) movement is fragmentary, while the third (Rondo) has a leisurely blues beat. The Rubato is coloured by crotchet steps produced by plucking between the nut and the left hand, and the Rondo is marked by slide glissandos. The overall duration is c. 14 minutes.
SKU: HL.14015939
ISBN 9788759888469. 9.5x14.25x0.125 inches.
Illuminatio ns - Capriccio For Flute And Orchestra was composed by Erik Norby in 1977. Programme Note: The title should rightly be pronounced in French (same spelling), as the piece was composed for and is dedicated to French flute virtuoso Jean-Pierre Rampal, who premiered ILLUMINATIONS in connection withhimreceiving the Danish Sonnings Musikpris in 1978. The title reflects my endeavour to create different illuminative effects in sound, for which the flute is an excellent medium, with its apparent ability to transform light phenomena into musical shapes. Tue music in ILLUMINATIONS sometimes sounds like glittering reflections, sometimes like a roaring bonfire. The absence of ordinaryflutes in the orchestra further enables the soloist to shine above a darker orchestral background. Several motives and shapes are illuminated along the way, and the music progresses in kaleidoscopic pattems of prismatic refractions. Erik Norby.
SKU: HL.14034968
8.25x11.75x0.055 inches.
Heitor Villa-Lobos was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1887, and has, by virtue of both his immense output and colorful and accessible musical language, become the most celebrated Brazilian composer of all time. His work not only richly typifies the diverse and kaleidoscopic Brazilian scene butalso, in its abundance, originality, and vitality, provided the key which unlocked Brazilian art music once and for all from the shackles of European late-Romanticism.
