The Last Invocation

SKU: ST.H492

ISBN 9790220224799.

The Last Invocation (d' - a flat'') and (d - e')
The Love-Song of the Birds (e' - b'') and (e - g')

The Two Vocal Duets, for 'soprano, baritone and violin with accompaniment of pianoforte', are important as being the first completed settings of Whitman by the composer, begun soon after his initial sketches for A Sea Symphony, and performed in 1904. Though there is a certain Wagnerian influence, the lyricism of these works is essentially English, and characteristically that of VW in particular. For the premiere, he provided an additional accompaniment of second violin, viola and cello ad libitum. Material for the second song is lost, but parts for the first are included with the score, though the composer considered the trio version as definitive, and the string-quartet experiment was not repeated at subsequent performances. Recorded by Mary Bevan (soprano), Johnny Herford (baritone), Thomas Gould (violin) and William Vann (piano) on Albion Records ALBCD029.

SKU: HL.48008868

UPC: 073999088687.

Contents: 1903: Blow, Blow Thou Winter Wind (Shakespeare) • E'en As a Lovely Flower (Kate Krocker, after Heine) • Go Not, Happy Day (Tennyson) • The Devon Maid (Keats) • Dawn and Evening (C.A., after Heine) • 1905: Adoration (Keats) • Fair Daffodils (Herrick) • So Perverse (Robert Bridges) • 1906: Come To Me in My Dreams (Matthew Arnold) • The Violets Blue (James Thomson, after Heine) • 1907: All Things That We Clasp (Emma Lazarus, after Heine) • 1913: Strew No More Red Roses (Matthew Arnold) • 1914: Where She Lies Asleep (Mary E. Coleridge) • Love Went a-Riding (Mary E. Coleridge) • 1917: Thy Hand in Mine (Mary E. Coleridge) • 1918: So Early in the Morning, O (James Stephens) • Mantle of Blue (Padraic Colum) • Blow Out, You Bugles (Rupert Brooke) • The Last Invocation (Walt Whitman) • 1919: Into Her Keeping (H.D. Lowry) • What Shall I Your True Love Tell? (Francis Thompson) • 'Tis But a Week (Gerald Gould).

SKU: PR.164002480

UPC: 680160038237.

This work is my second for a solo woodwind and a solo percussionist, following Firewing: The Flame and the Moth for oboe and percussion by nine years. The earlier piece followed a specific story line, and pitted the oboe against the percussionist as both adversary and lover. In Spirit Realms, my aim was not only to juxtapose the very different sounds of flute (plus alto flute and piccolo) against a large array of percussion, but also to attempt three different meditative spaces, each named for a different type of spiritual practice. The musical means of expression is very different for each of the three movements (as is the instrumentation), although they share a common scale-source: the looped pentatonic scale I have been developing over the last several years.   The first movement is called Prayer Tunnel, and is named for the Eskimo practice of solo meditation within a tunnel of ice blocks. This is said to be a means of overcoming demons within, and in my musical rendering it takes the form of an unaccompanied alto flute solo. The flute begins rather angrily, full of tension, but in the course of the solo passage manages to slowly unwind. The percussionist then plays the exact same music the alto flute had played....on seven tuned cymbals. Toward the end, the alto flute re-enters, its original meditation having fused with its mirror.   Kiva represents the circular, subterranean pit in which the Anasazi practiced their religion, a form of which still can be found in the Hopi tribes of the American southwest. These are not spaces for solo meditation, but rather a group meeting place in which only the sanctified are permitted. After an introductory invocation (dove call), the music begins. At first, it is flowing, in a repetitive double-five meter. It then traces several sections, with metric shifts forcing the pulse to race faster and faster, until it halves itself in the coda and returns to the exact pulse of the beginning. The flutist here uses the C flute, and the percussionist plays on both pitched (marimba) and unpitched instruments (various drums and struck sources).   Zendo is the meditation room used by Zen Buddhists. My music begins with another invocation (wind chimes, temple cup gongs, and temple blocks), then moves on to a slow subject stated by the flute. The subject is taken up by the vibraphone, and after several modulations and tempo changes, the flutist takes up the piccolo. The music continues higher and higher, and faster and faster (Zen meditation is NOT all about becoming lost!) until it breaks free at the very end. The percussionist is put through his paces in this movement, having to reach a staggering number of instruments in a short time.   Spirit Realms was commissioned by, and is dedicated to, the Armstrong Duo. -- Dan Welcher.

SKU: CA.967400

ISBN 9790007187484. Language: Latin.

With the publication of his hypnotic Pater noster, Carus proudly presents Jacek Sykulski as a new composer in the Carus Contemporary series. Whilst Sykulski has achieved worldwide success as Director of the Academic Choir at the University of Poznan and the Poznan Boys' Choir, as a composer he has remained a well-guarded secret until now. In his sacred compositions he combines in music the deeply Catholic-imbued tradition of his country with his own compositional technique, characterized by a tremendous vocal sensuousness of sound and a conscious use of tonality enriched by dissonance. His Pater noster was composed in 2009 and revised in 2015 for a performance by the RIAS Kammerchor in Berlin. The first section of this three-part work for eight-part choir (tenors and sopranos also split into three) begins with the invocation Pater noster homophonically in A minor. This then introduces the Gregorian liturgical melody of the Our Father canonically and aleatorically, like a contemplative congregational hymn. The middle section calls out Dein Reich komme in increasingly insistent rhythmic declamation, more demanding, with hypnotic repetitions and intensifications. In the last section, Sykulski returns to the opening harmonies, but now a semitone lower on A flat, followed by an intensification at the words sed libera nos a malo - and delivery us from evil once more; this ends unresolved in a diatonic cluster on A flat as the paradigm of our imperfect earthly existence. The eight-minute unaccompanied composition is extremely singable, impressive, and not difficult to master. The piece is suitable for use in the liturgy, as well as in concerts and competitions.

SKU: HL.49000665

ISBN 9790001004855. UPC: 073999272482. 9.0x12.0x0.076 inches.

Percussion quartet.