SKU: HL.49009585

ISBN 9783795766740. UPC: 841886000735. 5.25x7.5x0.272 inches. German - English.

Gounod's Faust opera (libretto by Michel Carre and Jules Barbier) is based on the love story of Faust and Marguerite which is but a part of Goethe's Faust drama. Consequently the title of the opera is unacceptable in Germany where it is renamed Margarethe, after the heroine.

SKU: HL.48024143

ISBN 9781784540852. UPC: 888680712143. 5.25x7.5x0.27 inches.

30-minute orchestral suite from Khachaturian's celebrated ballet, Spartacus (1955). Scenes 4 and 5 present the dramatic turning point where Spartacus is galvanised into leading the slave rebellion, opening with a mournful elegy for the death of a gladiatorial friend. It also includes a lively and charming central interlude, the Dance of the Shepherd and Shepherdess. Performance materials available on hire. Suitable for advanced standard performers.

SKU: BT.MUSM570366699

English.

Le Voyage Dans La Lune is a continuous orchestral score of approximately 14 minutes comprising two outer fast sections and a slower inner section of a dream-like character. The work is directly inspired by the film Le Voyage Dans La Lune (1902), written and directed by the pioneering French film-maker, Georges Méliès. Méliès was influenced by 19th century interests in science and discoveries, as well as the science fiction of Jules Verne. At the same time his work seems fantastic, surreal and satirical. Some critics point out an underlying critique of colonial adventuring. The plot centres on a group of astronomers who decide to launch a rocket to the moon containing a handful of their number. They reach the moon (famously landing on the moon’s face) and then encounter a strange race of aliens, whom they battle and destroy. The return to earth involves a dramatic descent, a plunge into the ocean and then celebratory dancing. The film inhabits a surreal and dream-like space, and uses an idiosyncratic visual language which transforms reality. This inspired an active musical response in my own score, which is by turns abrupt, smooth, lyrical and violent, and expresses something of the strange shifting surfaces and multiple and layered tempos evident in the film. The canons in the horns in the first scene reflect the intense arguments of the astronomers as they consider the project. The slower inner section is inspired by the scenes of the industrial City viewed from its rooftops by the astronomers. It also expresses the wonder of the astronomers as they see the earth rise from the perspective of the moon after their arrival there. The music of the final section is in places conflicted, reflecting the violent encounters with the moon’s inhabitants. It moves into a more harmonious phase at the close to match the celebrations upon the astronomers’ return from their adventuring. The music could be considered to be a surreal mini-opera without voices, voicing instead the characters of the silent screen. - Ed Hughes.

SKU: HL.14028038

ISBN 9788759854730. 12.0x16.5x0.3 inches. English.

The word GONG is saturated with associations: the splendour of the Orient, mysticism, drama, loud metallic clangour, violent impact, etc. The present piece draws upon all those connotations, but it is primarily a symphonic drama about the life and behaviour of the sun, our closest star and prime source of life on Earth. Describing the sun in music is not a new idea, of course; during a visit to Greece, Carl Nielsen was inspired by the orbit of the sun and its very un-Danish ferocity and thus wrote the Helios Overture. GONG is a Helios Overture too, of sorts, albeit more abstract. Recent astronomical research shows, that the surface of the sun reverberates like a gong, in four different, simultaneous tempi (not directly depicted in the score, though); the sun looks like a GONG, - the O in the written work looks like the sun; there is even a solar research group called GONG (Global Oscillation Network Group). Formally the composition follows the life and fate of the sun, from the initial explotional birth through the hyper-activity as energy source as we know it today to the final, predicted flaring up and collapse into a so-called white dwarf. But - being a musical composition, not an astrophysical thesis - GONG is brought to its compositional conclusion by a real concert-ending, a chord taken from the middle of the piece and sustained over several bars, from virtual nothingness to full force.

SKU: LO.30-2766L

UPC: 000308130454.

Melody Green's classic worship song receives a majestic choral treatment in this striking arrangement by Mary McDonald. Opening quietly with men's voices alone and building to a dramatic, worshipful conclusion, this setting is enhanced by the optional lush orchestration that beautifully underscores the lovely vocal textures. Instrumentation: 2 Fl, Ob, 2 Cl, Bsn (sub B Cl), 3 Tpt, 2 Hn (sub 2 A Sax), 2 Tbn (sub T Sax/Btn TC), Tba, Timp, Perc, Harp, Pno, 2 Vln, Vla, Cello, Bass, Digital String Reduction.

SKU: LO.30-3449MD

UPC: 000308146516.

This exciting song is a high-energy, lively, toe-tapping Southern gospel tune with a nod to the old gospel standard The Sweet By and By. A true celebration of the promise of our eternal home, this song will be loved by your choir and congregation alike!