SKU: FA.MFRO001P
8.27 x 11.69 inches.
Over the years 1908-16, Debussy had produced a viable scenario for Usher on his third attempt. Butwhen he came to making a complete draft of the music, he seems to have lost interest during Roderick Usher's long monologue, even though he was setting his own text. As in No-ja-li he jumped to the next passage that interested him, in this case the exciting final melodrama and the collapse of the Usher house itself. In the process of completing the missing half of the score, I discovered that by reusing Debussy's material for similar psychological situations across the opera, and by metamorphosing existing ideas (as Debussy does with Melisande's theme in his opera Pelleas et Melisande), the only things I really needed to add were linking material and any passages where fast music was required. So the 'nightmare scherzo', and Lady Madeline's escape from her coffin and her final bloody revenge on her brother are all mine, but most of the rest is existing Debussy in changing contexts (in which the Russian technique of 'changing backgrounds', both harmonic and textural, proved extremely useful, as it did to Debussy in his Prelude a l'apres-midi d'un faune). Eventually, both my completed ballet No-ja-li and the House of Usher were successfully premiered in 2006 and the latter soon began to find its way into the established repertoire in Europe and the US. To further support this, I transcribed some of the highlights of Debussy's score as A Night in the House of Usher for organ, and subsequently piano--with a focus on Scene 2 and the final, horrific and maca-bre melodrama. This climaxes in the double deaths of Roderick Usher and his Sister Madeline, together with the disintegration of the ill-fated House of Usher into the stagnant lake-all beneath a blood-red moon.In this form it was first performed by Ian Buckle in the Howard Assembly Rooms, Leeds in 2010.
SKU: HL.48025411
UPC: 196288202288.
The composer states that her Cello Concerto is antithetical to her other concertos. “While in the concertos for violin and piano, in the Double Concerto, and in my new sheng concerto I was seeking to merge the solo instrument and the orchestra into a single virtuoso super-instrument, here itÂ’s all about the competitive tension between the soloist and the orchestra. The 'aura' of the cello was the initial nucleus and forms the basis of the music, so the whole structure of the piece is thus 'carried' by the cello. However, the orchestra responds to it in an antagonistic way. This antagonism is much stronger than in traditional Classical-Romantic concertos; one could even speak of a 'psychological warfare' between soloist and orchestra. In my cello writing, I often ask the soloist to disguise the nature of the instrument so the perception can be blurred. I try to explore the boundaries of the celloÂ’s expressivity and to broaden the definition of 'expression'. Therefore I also use special playing techniques and call for unusual timbres, including noises and rasping sounds. For me, this actually serves the expressivity by suggesting new meanings. The unique artistry of Alban Gerhardt inspired me immensely. Not only his solo part but also the orchestral parts are often characterized by extreme virtuosity, by the idea of the instrumentalists being pushed to the edge.â€.
