SKU: HL.48188819

English.

The coal seller is a song for SCTB a cappella by Paul Ladmirault. The song was written with a main theme, two variations and a coda, and features a total of 5 verses. The lyrics remind us of a time when coal sellers came to town to sell merchandise. To be sung a cappella, all in andantino, this song is very lyrical and has some polyphonic aspects and some merismas. Each verse contains different lyrics, all revolving around the coal seller and his life: - Verse 1: this verse settles the action, with the seller trying to sell coal in the city - Verse 2: the seller is asked how much is the cost of a pound of coal - Verse 3: he is asked where his wife is - Verse 4: the beauty of his wife is highlighted - Verse 5: the seller explains why his shirt is so black Paul Ladmirault (1877-1944) was a French composer. He composed numerous pieces including: operas, ballets, orchestral works, chamber music and vocal music..

SKU: PR.11441206S

UPC: 680160017515.

The work's main orientation is an exploration of instrumental color. In particular, the alto flute and cello often act as timbral extensions of the harp, which in turn, initiates much of the work's motivic material. As a consequence of the developmental process, there results a penultimate coalescence of harmonic and thematic elements, leading to a modified recapitulation of the opening material. The title suggests the image of a serene cloud amid a continually changing sky.

SKU: PR.114418750

ISBN 9781491129524. UPC: 680160655489. 9 x 12 inches.

The seven-movement in the snowy margins might be considered a sort of atomic suite, as each movement is succinct, yet a microcosmic powerhouse inspired by “The Comet,” by Polish writer and Holocaust victim Bruno Schulz. Hersch’s intensity is expressed through dramatically captivating violin gestures, pushing the boundaries of texture, technique, and emotion.
Michael Hersch’s in the snowy margins was written in 2010. Like much of his work, it is grounded in literature and art. The title is drawn from a short story, The Comet by Polish writer, poet, and artist, Bruno Schulz (1892-1942). This forms the last of his collection The Street of Crocodiles, published in 1934. Schulz was shot by a Nazi officer in 1942.Both the title of Hersch’s work, and the ‘motto’ found on the composer’s manuscript (‘Thus far and no further. But what has become of the end of the world…’) are to be found in The Comet. It’s interesting that in in the snowy margins, unlike his earlier Fourteen Pieces which were inspired by the poetry of Primo Levi, Hersch chose to not title each individual movement with a quote. However his choices of text are applied, there is a clear quality of distillation. In every case, the texts which the composer has chosen to eschew lie beneath the music, akin to the greater mass of an iceberg, submerged, but imminent.Hersch also has very particular taste in visual art, and there seems to be common ground between the intensely expressionist drawing of Schulz, and those of Michael Mazur, which inspired his string quartet Images from a Closed Ward. The parallels between these artists reflect common traits shared between these two pieces, which provide a window on how the music should be approached, expressively and technically. I would argue, that from a violinist’s point of view, this pertains directly to how bow and left hand should approach the string: the febrile vibrancy of both Mazur and Schulz’s pencil and charcoal strokes, perhaps what T.S. Eliot called the ‘circulation of the lymph’, in every gesture, speaks to the intense experience, physically and emotionally, of playing (and hearing) this music. There is an intense sense of ‘truth to materials’ at every moment, the sense that every note sings on the edge of, or even beyond, total collapse.— Peter Sheppard-Skaerved.