SKU: PR.114419940
ISBN 9781491133934. UPC: 680160683499. 9 x 12 inches.
Responding to demand from clarinetists, Schocker created this adaptation of his best-loved work, customizing it for the clarinet’s richness of contrasting registers. Composed as a recital piece for his own performances as a flutist, Gary Schocker’s Regrets and Resolutions has been a standard in that instrument’s repertoire for over 30 years. Inspired by an 80-year-old friend’s birthday, the composer has written: “I wrote the Regrets imagining what it might be like to look back over 80 years. ‘What if I’d made different choices?’ ‘What if ...?’ The Resolutions is a forward-thinking movement, very energetic and positive, except for a brief looking-back, questioning (the 1st movement is recapped and grows), after which the music plunges back into the rhythmic finale.â€.
SKU: AP.1-ADV8417
UPC: 805095084177. English. Irish Folksong.
Writing these arrangements, Frank Reinshagen has created little masterpieces, which broaden the rhythmical and harmonic context of the original tunes in an interesting manner without detracting from their archaic and melancholic character. These original tunes have been borrowed from the Irish, Scottish, and Gaelic musical tradition. These through-composed arrangements are rather easy to perform from the rhythmical and technical point of view. Yet, they are quite demanding in respect of the key they are written in, their intonation, and especially their interpretation. Their different instrumentations are fully compatible with each other and, due to their overall structure, they are also suitable to be played with multi-scored parts. The original of The Sons of Liberty is of a more recent date and goes back to the time when the King of England forced the Irish farmers' sons to go to war in America against their own fellow countrymen who were striving for freedom there. The arrangement conveys the impression of a vigorous forward motion created by a recurring and changing riff. Although it is written in a somewhat more difficult key (E minor), it is not too exacting from the technical point of view.
SKU: ST.C129
ISBN 9790570811298.
As I sit myself down to write this brief foreword, I ask myself can there be music more stirring than these old Cornish folk melodies? Though not Cornish myself (I confess to being born a little further up the road, in Bristol), I feel I have spent sufficient time in these 'ere parts to resonate with the sturdy brass band tradition that continues to permeate this incomparably beautiful, rugged county. One can almost detect a French 'accent' when listening to the piano music of Debussy, and likewise, speaking as a lapsed brass player, there is undoubtedly something of the Cornish twang about Trelawny when played on a cornet or euphonium. Then again, one gets a different, yet entirely convincing effect upon hearing these melodies rendered on woodwind instruments; hence, with a little gamesmanship on my part, I am pleased to see my collection of these fifteen delectable ditties come to fruition in the form of arrangements for treble clef brass instruments (in B flat and E flat), trombone and tuba (bass clef), horn in F, flute, clarinet and bassoon. While many will find themselves humming the likes of Going up Camborne Hill, Lamorna or The Helston Furry Dance even before they have turned to the first page - for these are indelibly intertwined with Cornish culture – I wonder if I might draw your attention to The Cornish Squire, The Pool of Pilate and Cold Blows the Wind Today Sweetheart, which are quite simply sublime melodies, perhaps needing that extra bit of help in bringing them to mind nowadays. In the best tradition of musical hand-me-downs, Cornish folk music works equally ideally sung and played, and only by doing so on a regular basis can such traditions hope to continue forward with vigour and authority. A legitimate way of achieving this is to revitalise the harmonic scheme of these ancient tunes and bring them up to date for a modern audience; after all, it was such an approach that fuelled the imagination of Benjamin Britten and Ralph Vaughan Williams in decades past, while skilfully paying homage to the underlying charm and, for want of a better word, simplicity, of the original music. But this is only a start – for without an energetic response from younger generations, Cornish folk music is destined to wither on the vine in much the same way as is happening with the Cornish dialect. So, put your instrument to your lips and proceed, not with caution, but with enthusiasm and a smile, for your great grandparents (and perhaps even their grandparents) would surely raise a glass if they could hear you doing your bit to ensure the survival of this splendid heritage.Timeless Cornish melodies, cooked up for hungry clarinet playersGrades 1–4Former Spartan Press Cat. No.: SP1218.
