SKU: PR.111401970

UPC: 680160490394. 9 x 12 inches. English. Text: William Butler Yeats. William Yeats. Poems by William Butler Yeats.

This work was commissioned by Susan and Elihu Rose. It was written at the request of tenor Robert White, to whom it is dedicated. It was premiered at Alice Tully Hall on February 17, 1993 by Robert White, James Galway, the Lark Quartet and pianist Brian Zeger. It was actually Miss Alice Tully's suggestion that some settings of Yeats would be lovely that prompted me to look at these poems. I was at once struck by their intense lyric beauty and decided immediately to use them for this work. The six poems were chosen from Yeats' 1899 collection The Wind Among the Reeds. Dealing with unrequited love, these particular poems have hints of the mystic preoccupations which were to become more prominent in Yeats' later work. Scored for an ensemble consisting of Flute, Piano and String Quartet, it was my intention that the beauty and clarity of the poetry should be matched by a directness of musical expression which would not overwhelm the poems. The instrumental writing makes no attempt at tone painting but rather provides a colorful but often austere psychological background to the tenor's melodies which are at times almost folk-like in their simplicity. The work is unified as a cycle not only by its tonal structure, but also through harmonic and motivic elements that the individual songs share.

SKU: HL.49018856

ISBN 9790220133244. UPC: 884088675028. 9.0x12.0x0.204 inches.

Although this is technically Cowie's seventh string quartet, it replaces his earlier fourth quartet, which he came to feel no longer fit with his compositional voice. The quartet fluctuates between a slow, luminous sound and fast, agitated music. Unlike much of Cowie's work, this music is abstracted from his usual preoccupation with the natural world, turning instead to look at an inner landscape. The composer describes the emotional force behind his quartet: The year 2009 was a terrible year in which I lost three close friends to cancer and an elder brother to Alzheimer's disease. It was also a year in which my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer; something from which she has thankfully made a great recovery. At times like these, emotions are sorely tested and highlighted. Four people I loved have gone, so this music must remain as testament not to death, but to the magnificent fragility and loveliness of life. It closes with a gentle and almost vaporising 'benediction' a kind of 'amen' if you like.

SKU: BT.EMBZ15083

English-German-Hungarian.

Bartók probably first played pieces by Domenico Scarlatti in public in 1911. During the next two decades he featured them in his piano recitals more than 60 times. His dedication to Italian and French Baroque music is also illustrated by the fact that, in 1920, he signed a contract with the Budapest publisher Rozsnyai to edit seven volumes of Baroque keyboard music. His plan was to select compositions by Couperin and Rameau in addition to pieces by Scarlatti, but during the 1920s it ended up being only two volumes of Couperin and another two comprising ten compositions by Scarlatti. In editing these masterpieces, Bartók's aim was primarily to counterbalance or evenovershadow the works by the Mendelssohn-Schumann epigones used in primary and secondary music education. The present, single-volume collection comprises Bartók's two Scarlatti volumes, complete with an editorial preface, his detailed performing instructions, and his commentary. The editor recommends these compositions for pianists with at least five years' experience, and gives practical recommendations for the grouping of individual items to form charming sonatina-like sets of pieces.

Bartók spielte wahrscheinlich 1911 erstmals Werke von Domenico Scarlatti öffentlich und in den folgenden zwei Jahrzehnten ließ er sie an seinen Klavierabenden mehr als sechzig Mal erklingen. Seine Verbundenheit mit der italienischen und französischen Barockmusik beweist sich auch darin, dass er 1920 einen Vertrag mit dem Budapester Verlag Rozsnyai über die Herausgabe von sieben Heften mit Werken der Klaviermusik schloss. Geplant war, dass er das Material der Bände sowohl mit Werken Scarlattis als auch mit Kompositionen Couperins und Rameaus zusammenstellte. Im Laufe der 1920er-Jahre kam es schließlich zur Herausgabe einer Couperin-Auswahl in zwei Heften sowie - ebenso in zwei Heften - von zehn Scarlatti-Kompositionen. Mit der Veröffentlichung dieser Meisterwerke beabsichtigte Bartók in erster Linie, den Mendelssohn-Schumann-Epigonen bereits in der Musikausbildung in der Grund- und Mittelstufe entgegenwirken und ihre Werke in den Hintergrund treten zu lassen.

Die vorliegende Publikation versammelt in einem Band das Material der beiden mit Bartóks Vorwort, detaillierten Vortragsanweisungen und Anmerkungen erschienenen Scarlatti-Hefte. Der Herausgeber empfiehlt PianistInnen diese Kompositionen seit mindestens fünf Jahren zum Klavier spielen und gibt auch praktische Vorschläge dafür, wie man die einzelnen Stücke zu einem attraktiven Sonatina-artigen Ganzen gruppieren kann.