Festival Concertato on St. Anne

SKU: BP.HB379B

Sondra K. Tucker has set the hymn O God, Our Help In Ages Past for three to five octaves of handbells, organ and/or brass quintet and timpani (BP.HB379B), and congregational singing, in her arrangement of Festival Concertato on St. Anne. The sprightly introduction gives way to a majestic arrangement of the hymn tune before the congregation comes in to sing. During the choral portion, suggested voicings and accompaniments are provided to add extra aural interest. Use this piece in a general worship service, or to pull out all the stops for an Easter Sunday service.

Parts for 2 trumpets, trombone, French horn, tuba and timpani.

SKU: HL.14000906

ISBN 9788759853672. 11.5x16.25x0.453 inches. Danish.

Abrahamsen' s Concerto For Piano And Orchestra was composed in 1999, by commission for the BIT-20 Ensemble. A complex and multi-layered work, opening with highly minimal material and very slowly building to an ecstatic frenzy across the four movements. As the piece progresses Abrahamsen has also included some significant nods towards composers Gyorgy Ligeti (a former teacher of the composer) and Gustav Mahler. The work was premiered at the Ultima Festival in Oslo in 2000 with Anne Marie Abildskov as soloist.

SKU: PR.11641861SP

UPC: 680160685202.

What? ! - my composer colleagues said - A concerto for the piano? It's a 19th century instrument! Admittedly we are in an age when originally created timbres and/or musico-technological formulations are often the modus operandi of a piece. Actually, this Concerto began about two years ago when, during one of my creative jogs, the sound of the uppermost register of the piano mingled with wind chimes penetrated my inner ear. The challenge and fascination of exploring and developing this idea into an orchestral situation determined that some day soon I would be writing a work for piano and orchestra. So it was a very happy coincidence when Mona Golabek phoned to tell me she would like discuss the Ford Foundation commission. After covering areas of aesthetics and compositional styles, we found that we had a good working rapport, and she asked if I would accept the commission. The answer was obvious. Then began the intensive thought process on the stylistic essence and organization of the work. Along with this went a renewed study of idiomatic writing for the piano, of the kind Stravinsky undertook with the violin when he began his Violin Concerto. By a stroke of great fortune, the day in February 1972 that I received official notice from the Ford Foundation of the commission, I also received a letter from the Guggenheim Foundation informing me I had been awarded my second fellowship. With the good graces of Zubin Mehta and Ernest Fleischmann, masters of my destiny as a member of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, I was relieved of my orchestral duties during the Hollywood Bowl season. Thus I was able to go to Europe to work and to view the latest trends in music concentrating in London (the current musical melting pot and showcase par excellence), Oslo, Norway, for the Festival of Scandinavian Music called Nordic Days, and Warsaw, Poland, for its prestigious Autumn Festival. Over half the Concerto was completed in that summer and most of the rest during the 72-73 season with the final touches put on during a month as Resident Scholar at the Rockefeller Foundation's Villa Serbelloni in Bellagio, Italy. So much for the external and environmental influences, except perhaps to mention the birds of Sussex in the first movement, the bells of Arhus (Denmark) in the second movement and the bells of Bellagio at the end of the Concerto. Primary in the conception was the personality of Miss Golabek: she is a wonderfully vital and dynamic person and a real virtuoso. Therefore, the soloist in the Concerto is truly the protagonist; it is she (for once we can do away with the generic he) who unfolds the character and intent of the piece. The first section is constructed in the manner of a recitative - completely unmeasured - with letters and numbers by which the conductor signals the orchestra for its participation. This allows the soloist the freedom to interpret the patterns and control the flow and development of the music. The Concerto is actually in one continuous movement but with three large divisions of sufficiently contrasting character to be called movements in themselves. The first 'movement' is based on a few timbral elements: 1) a cluster of very low pitches which at the beginning are practically inaudibly depressed, and sustained silently by the sostenuto pedal, which causes sympathetic vibrating pitches to ring when strong notes are struck; 2) a single powerful note indicated by a black note-head with a line through it indicating the strongest possible sforzando; 3) short figures of various colors sometimes ominous, sometimes as splashes of light or as elements of transition; 4) trills and tremolos which are the actual controlling organic thread starting as single axial tremolos and gradually expanding to trills of increasingly larger and more powerful scope. The 'movement' begins in quiescent repose but unceasingly grows in energy and tension as the stretching of a string or rubber band. When it can no longer be restrained, it bursts into the next section. The second 'movement,' propelled by the released tension, is a brilliant virtuosic display, which begins with a long solo of wispy percussion, later joined in duet with the piano. Not to be ignored, the orchestra takes over shooting the material throughout all its sections like a small agile bird deftly maneuvering through nothing but air, while the piano counterposes moments of lyricism. The orchestra reaches a climax, thrusting us into the third 'movement' which begins with a cadenza-like section for the piano. This moves gently into an expressive section (expressive is not a negative term to me) in which duets are formed with various instruments. There are fleeting glimpses of remembrances past, as a fragmented recapitulation. One glimpse is hazily expressed by strings and percussion in a moment of simultaneous contrasting levels of activity, a technique of which I have been fond and have utilized in various fixed-free relationships, particularly in my Percussion Concerto, Contextures and Games: Collage No. 1. The second half of the third 'movement; is a large coda - akin to those in Beethoven - which brings about another display of virtuosity, this time gutsy and driving, raising the Concerto to a final climax, the soloist completing the fragmented recapitulation concept as well as the work with the single-note sforzando and low cluster from the very opening of the first movement.

SKU: FG.55011-372-5

ISBN 9790550113725.

Imag es of the sea figure prominently throughout my life and memories: from holidays on the Atlantic coast during my Canadian childhood to my current Baltic home, and the imagined, only later experienced Mediterranean of my ancestral heritage. As an immigrant (son of an immigrant) bound to two northern countries, the sea is emblematic of my twin homelands, from the expanses of water surrounding them to those separating them. A Mari usque ad Mare. The sea is also an enduring image of the unknown, of expanses unexplored, of the raw power of nature and, for too many currently, of terror holding a hope of refuge - or the pain of loss.
Such disparate ideas were captured for me in the seascapes of the New York painter MaryBeth Thielhelm, whom I met in 2008 during a residency on the Gulf of Mexico. Her vast, abstract, nearly monochromatic depictions of imaginary seas in wildly varying moods were the catalyst for a concerto where the piano is frequently far from a hero battling a collective, but rather acts as a channel for elemental forces surging up from the orchestra, floating - sometimes barely so - on its constantly shifting surface. There are few themes to speak of, beyond a handful of iconic ideas that periodically cycle upward. Rather, the piano's material is largely an ornamentation of the more primal rhythmic and harmonic impulses from the orchestra below - a poetic interpretation, if you will, of the more immediate experience of facing the vastness of some unknown body of water.
The title Nameless Seas is borrowed from one of Thielhelm's exhibitions, as are those of the four movements, which are bridged together into two halves of roughly equal weight - one rhapsodic and free, the other more single-minded and direct, separated only by a short breath. The opening movement, Nocturne, is predominantly calm, if brooding, darkness and light alternating throughout. Lyrical arabesques sparkle over gently lapping cross-currents in the strings and mirrored timpani, the piano's full power only rarely deployed. The waves gradually build, drawing in the full orchestra for a meeting of forces in Land and Sea, a brighter, more warmly lyrical scene that unfolds in series of dreamlike, sometimes even nostalgic visions, which for me carry strong memories of sitting on rocks above surging Atlantic waves. The third movement, Wake, is a fast, perpetual-motion texture of glinting, darting rhythms and sudden shafts of light, with a prominent part for the steel drums, limning the piano's quicksilver figurations. An ecstatic climax crashes into a solo cadenza that grows progressively calmer and more introspective rather than virtuosic. Much of the tension finally releases into Unclaimed Waters, a drifting, meditative seascape in which the piano is progressively engulfed by a series of ever-taller waves, ultimately dissolving into a tolling, rippling continuum of sound.
It has been a great privilege to realize such a long-held dream as this piece, and to write it for not one, but two great pianists. Risto-Matti Marin and Angela Hewitt, both of whose friendship and support have been unfailing and humbling, share the dedication. Nameless Seas was commissioned by the PianoEspoo festival and Canada's National Arts Centre, with the premieres in Ottawa and Helsinki led by Hannu Lintu and Olari Elts. Thanks are due also to the Jenny and Antti Wihuri fund, whose generous grant provided me with much-needed time, and Escape to Create in Seaside, Florida, the source to which I returned to do a large part of the work.

SKU: BT.DHP-1115249-140

9x12 inches. English-German-French-Dut ch.

The Wooden Soldier is a short and simple piece commissioned by the Singapore Ministry of Education. It was originally intended as a compulsory piece for the 2012 Singapore Youth Festival. Because many school bands in Singapore are incomplete, the composer was specifically asked to create a work that could equally be played by a limited ensemble—which explains various doubled andoptional parts.The wooden toy soldier that inspires the work initially marches in a fictitious parade before gliding into a swift waltz. Both sections are based on the same melodic material: the brisk triple-time passage is in fact a variation on the parade theme. Switching between majorand minor keys—together with a number of surprising twists—makes an enthralling work despite the restrictions imposed.

The Wooden Soldier is een kort en eenvoudig werkje dat is geschreven in opdracht van het Singaporese ministerie van Onderwijs. Het was aanvankelijk bedoeld als verplicht werk voor het Singapore Youth Festival 2012. Omdat veelschoolorkesten in Singapore een onvolledige bezetting hebben, kreeg de componist het nadrukkelijke verzoek om het werk zo vorm te geven dat het ook met een beperkt ensemble uitgevoerd kan worden: dat verklaart een aantal verdubbelingenen instrumenten ad libitum.Het houten speelgoedsoldaatje dat als inspiratiebron diende, stapt eerst in een fictieve parade en strekt daarna de benen tijdens een vlotte wals. Beide passages zijn gebaseerd op hetzelfde melodischemateriaal: de snelle driekwartsmaat is dus als het ware een variant op het paradethema. De afwisseling tussen grote- en kleinetertstoonaarden en hier en daar een verrassende wending zorgen ervoor dat dit werkje met zijn enethema blijft boeien, ondanks de vele opgelegde beperkingen.

Th e Wooden Soldier ist ein kurzes, einfaches Werk, das im Auftrag des Bildungsministeriums von Singapur geschrieben wurde. Es war zunächst als Pflichtstück für das Singapurer Jugendfestival 2012 gedacht. Da viele Schulblasorchester in Singapur unvollständig besetzt sind, bat man den Komponisten ausdrücklich, das Werk so zu gestalten, dass es auch mit einem begrenzten Ensemble gespielt werden könne: Dies erklärt einige Verdopplungen und optionale Instrumente.Der hölzerne Spielzeugsoldat, der als Quelle der Inspiration diente, marschiert zunächst in einer fiktiven Parade, um danach das Tanzbein zu einem flotten Walzer zu schwingen. BeideAbschnitte basieren auf demselben melodischen Material: Der schnelle Dreivierteltakt ist also im Grunde eine Variation auf das Parade-Thema. Der Wechsel zwischen Dur- und Moll-Tonarten sowie eingestreute überraschende Wendungen sorgen dafür, dass dieses Stück mit seinem einen Thema trotz der zahlreichen auferlegten Beschränkungen stets spannend bleibt.

The Wooden Soldier (Le soldat de bois) est une pièce courte et simple commandée par le Ministère singapourien de l’Education. Cette oeuvre a été initialement écrite comme pièce imposée pour le Festival de la Jeunesse se déroulant Singapour en 2012. Comme de nombreuses formations scolaires présentent quelques lacunes au niveau de certains pupitres, Jan van der Roost a été sollicité afin de composer une oeuvre qui pourrait également être jouée par une formation incomplète - ce qui explique le doublement de certaines parties et les voix optionnelles.Le petit soldat de bois qui anime cette composition musicale, marche tout d’abord au coeur d’une parade fictive avantd’exécuter quelques pas d’une valse rapide. On retrouvera la même trame musicale dans les deux parties de l’oeuvre : les vivifiantes mesures ternaires de la valse sont en fait une variation du thème de la parade. Une alternance entre mode majeur et mineur ainsi qu’un certain nombre de rebondissements inattendus, font de cette pièce une oeuvre captivante, malgré les restrictions imposées.

Commissionato come brano d’obbligo dal Ministero dell’Educazione per il Singapore Youth Festival 2012, The Wooden Soldier è stato arrangiato per poter essere eseguito da una formazione ad organico ridotto. Il pezzo include varie parti raddoppiate e opzionali. Il brano inizia in uno stile simile a una marcia da parata per poi scivolare verso un rapido valzer, basandosi, seppure in stili diversi, sul medesimo materiale melodico. I passaggi tra tonalit maggiori e minori, come anche sorprendenti colpi di scena, fanno di questo brano una valida aggiunta al programma da concerto.

SKU: BT.DHP-1115249-010

9x12 inches. English-German-French-Dut ch.

The Wooden Soldier is a short and simple piece commissioned by the Singapore Ministry of Education. It was originally intended as a compulsory piece for the 2012 Singapore Youth Festival. Because many school bands in Singapore are incomplete,the composer was specifically asked to create a work that could equally be played by a limited ensemble - which explains various doubled andoptional parts.


Stijf en stram komt hij aan gemarcheerd in de parade: het houten speelgoedsoldaatje! Maar schijn bedriegt, want al snel strekt hij zijn benen, en… ons soldaatje danst weg op een vlotte wals! Beide passages zijn gebaseerd op hetzelfde melodischemateriaal: de snelle driekwartsmaat is een variant op het paradethema. Jan Van der Roost schreef The Wooden Soldier als verplicht werk voor het Singapore Youth Festival 2012. Veel schoolorkesten in Singapore hebben een onvolledige bezetting.De componist schreef het werk daarom zodanig, dat ook u het met een beperkt ensemble kunt uitvoeren.

Stramm marschiert er einher, der tapfere kleine Holzsoldat! Doch der Schein trügt, denn bald schwingt er seine Beine lustig im Walzertakt... The Wooden Soldier ist ein kurzes, einfaches Werk, das dank einiger Verdopplungen und optionalerInstrumente auch mit unvollständigen Besetzungen gespielt werden kann, aber mit seinen interessanten Dur-Moll-Wechseln und manch überraschender Wendung immer spannend bleibt!

The Wooden Soldier (Le soldat de bois) est une piéce courte et simple commandée par le Ministére singapourien de l'Education. Cette oeuvre a été initialement écrite comme piéce imposée pour le Festival de la Jeunesse sedéroulant Singapour en 2012. Comme de nombreuses formations scolaires présentent quelques lacunes au niveau de certains pupitres, Jan van der Roost a été sollicité afin de composer une oeuvre qui pourrait également être jouée par uneformation incompléte - ce qui explique le doublement de certaines parties et les voix optionnelles.


Commissionato come brano d’obbligo, dal Ministero dell’Educazione per il Singapore Youth Festival 2012, The Wooden Soldier è stato arrangiato per poter essere eseguito da una formazione ad organico ridotto. Il pezzo include varie partiraddoppiate ed opzionali. Il brano inizia in uno stile simile a una marcia da parata per poi scivolare verso un rapido valzer, basandosi, seppure in stili diversi, sul medesimo materiale melodico. I passaggi tra tonalit maggiori e minori, come anchesorprendenti colpi di scena, fanno di questo brano una valida aggiunta al programma da concerto.