SKU: HL.14008392
ISBN 9780711936942.
The story centres on the English princess Caroline Mathilde (1751-1775), sister of George III, who at the age of 15 was sent to Denmark to marry the 17-year-old eccentric and schizophrenic Danish King, Christian VII. The ballet portrays her unhappy marriage, the King's growing madness and her fatal love-affair with Struensee, the King's influential physician, which leads to their arrest, his execution and her exile, at the age of 20, separated from her two young children. In keeping with the period, and perhaps also with the traditions of Romantic ballet, the music is relatively simple in harmony and form, and most of the action is conveyed in set-piece dances. The suite, which consists essentially of the second half of Act I, begins with one of these, a bristling interplay of wind and string ensembles in D major, portraying in the ballet a curious nuptial game with the king and princess on movable pedestals. The slow music that follows has to do with the king's healing by Dr. Struensee and the new queen's unquiet reverie (oboe and cor anglais solos). Then the suite, like the act, is capped by a pair of pas-de-deux, the first savage and bizarre for the royal couple, the second rich and passionate for the queen and the miracle-working doctor. Score (miniature). Duration c. 25mins.
SKU: CN.S11042
This symphonic sketch for concert band is packed full different motives thrown around the ensemble hinting at the programmatic leitmotifs of Wagner. Every section of the ensemble gets a workout in this delightful 10-minute work.A Symphonic Sketch for Concert Band. The resurgence of interest in George Lloyd's music must give us faith that such talent will ultimately prevail against sometimes unhappy circumstances. Lloyd was Cornish and showed precocious gifts at an early age - he had completed his first symphony by the age of nineteen. During the 1930s he completed two operas, one of which - The Serf - was produced at Covent Garden in 1938. He was set for a glittering career as a composer. The Second World War intervened and he was invalidad out of the Navy in a shell-shocked state, and having written very little serious music since 1937 went to Switzerland to recuperate, looked after by his wife, Nancy. Painfully, he began writing again - symphonies Nos. 4 and 5 - and then returned to England. He needed to earn a living and he set up a mushroom farm in Dorset. But slowly he began to compose again and drafted more symphonies in short score. By this time he was virtually unknown - despite being considered the equal of Walton, Britten, and other young stars of English music some 30 years earlier. Lloyd decided to embark on a series of recordings of his symphonies, and slowly popular acclaim enabled him to regain his position. The Forest of Arden was written in 1987 as a result of a commission by the Solihull Youth Wind Band. Although Lloyd's music feels instinctively written one should not be misled - it is carefully crafted, but the craft and structure are always subordinated to create a flow with a strongly melodic content. Instead of two or three themes, The Forest of Arden contains an abundance of ideas which can be described in two groups. The first group contains the opening rhythmic motif, quickly developed into a short rising quaver passage in the woodwinds, and later then a chromatic ostinato bass - only 8 bars at this stage but later expanded. The second group is broad and expansive, initially based on intervals of rising fifths introduced by euphonium, tubas, and baritone saxophone, immediately echoed by horns. Low brass and winds expand the theme into rising sixths and octaves. There is a hint of development, bit this is arrested as the music moves to a piu tranquillo section introduced by the alto saxophone which further develops the rising sixth theme. There follows a true development of the opening material, starting with the ostinato bass and gradually passing through different tonal centers until the rising fifths of the second theme group are heralded - fortissimo and poco piu largamente shortly before the end. The structure is almost Wagnerian (albeit on a much smaller scale), with themes being used as leitmotifs, but this is music which, even within the space of ten minutes is conceived on a grand design.
SKU: HL.49046901
UPC: 196288075271.
This complete edition, which is the first outside Russia, of the almost fourteen-year correspondence between P. I. Tchaikovsky and the music-loving patron (and wealthy widow of a Baltic railway entrepreneur) N. F. von Meck represents for German-speaking readers and music historians an indispensable primary source on the life and work of the greatest Russian composer as well as on his environment, while, at the same time, reflecting the political, cultural and social situation of the Russian Empire from the perspective of two privileged, educated and regime-loving subjects. The life of the large families Tchaikovsky-Davydov and von Meck, the unpleasant consequences of the composer's unhappy marriage, faith and religion, literature, philosophy, the reception of earlier and contemporary Russian and European music, fine arts, foreigntravel, political, economic and social conditions - even farming (in Brailov and Kamenka/Verbovka, the Ukrainian estates of the von Meck and Davydov families) and many more are the topics of this correspondence between two related and yet so different personalities who, as agreed, never met in personal conversation and yet talked to each other in lively, often confessional speech. The texts of the letters in the present edition (whose planning dates back to the 1950s), with the added contrasting excerpts from letters of Tchaikovsky to other persons, such as his trusted brothers Anatoly and Modest, have been revised according to the new Russian Complete Edition by Polina Vajdman (Celjabinsk 2007 ff.). Various introductions, accompanying texts and overviews as well ascomprehensive indices (one of them systematically by subjects), together with numerous explanations and notes at the bottom of the pages, make it easier for the reader to find his/her way through the all in all more than 1,200 documents. The three volumes are also available for subscription.
SKU: GI.G-9958
UPC: 785147995807. English. Text Source: From I Loved You First, Christina Rossetti, 1830-1894, alt. Text by Christina Rossetti.
 The English Romantic poet, Christina Rossetti (1830–1894), is chiefly known for her mystic religious lyrics. Her limited number of love poems are mostly of an unhappy nature, rather like objective expressions of happiness denied. A certain steely stoicism within her caused her to turn away from love twice in her lifetime with two separate men. There is no evidence of resolute refusal of love in this poem, however. Here she profusely proclaims her deep love for another. Wayland Rogers has set the last five lines of I Loved You First to music. The setting is an excerpt from his song cycle, I-Thou , which was commissioned and premiered by Fourth Coast Ensemble in Chicago in 2018. About the Series: Doreen Rao, 2019 Robert Shaw Award recipient, launches her culturally inclusive choral series, Global Encounters for Young Voices, featuring accessible treble- and mixed-voice works for developing choirs.
