The Dreamers - A Gothic Tale for Horn Trio by Niels Marthinsen. Programme note: The Dreamers for horn violin and piano is the sixth of a series of seven compositions named after Karen Blixen's collection of short stories Seven Gothic Tales. My musical gothic tales are written for very different ensembles - THE SUPPER AT ELSINORE is a saxophone quartet THE OLD CHEVALIER is for bass trombone and piano THE MONKEY is a chamber orchestra work - but they all share musical material in a criss-cross of contextual references reminiscent of Blixen's narrative complexity: Themes and motivs from one pieceappear in others in new and surprising shapes and combinations. Karen Blixen's THE DREAMERS has the most complex narrative structure of all her seven gothic tales. The story is made up of three tales with different narrators but with the same principal caracter in various disguises all three imbedded within a fourth tale that serves as a framework for the entire short story.The main story line unravels the life of a famous opera diva who looses her voice during a terrible fire. Before this her life was perpetual bliss and the tragedy drives her into assuming different personality guises in order to escape reality.Toward the end she is confronted with her true identity and dies.THE DREAMERS isn't 'about' anything. The music is inspired by the artistic content of Blixen's short story - it's emotionalism dramatic construction atmosphere period and settings - but unfolds in time and musical space in ways that are completely independent of the story's narrative progression...except one might say that the three players try their best to either catch or escape each other and that when they finally meet it happens abruptly even tragically - and only barely provides a little consolation.

Anne Boyd's The Quiet Place for Oboe (doubling antique cymbals) Clarinet (doubling rin) Viola and Harp.The Quiet Place was commissioned by the Warwick andLeamington Festival for performance by Okeanos on their New Music Day on 14th July 2002.'The Quiet Place' is a meditation site in the University of York dedicated by Dame Janet Baker 'In honour of thespirituality which is in all people'. It was a place I visited frequently in the months I spent as visiting Professor at the University in late 2001. So soon after the attack on the New York Trade Centre the worldfelt a very unstable place especially to be so far from my Australian home. It was difficult to make much sense of existence in a world of fanatical fundamentalism - both Islamic and Christian. Perhaps for comfort I foundmyself thinking back a thousand years to the vital earth based spirituality of Hildegard of Bingen and uncovered an Antiphon she had composed 'Nunc Aperuit'. This chant became the basis of the work I have written forOkeanos in response to an invitation from Jinny Shaw whom I met in York last year. In English translation the words of the chant translate as 'Now the closed door has opened for us / What the serpent hassuffocated in woman./ Therefore shines forth in thedawn/ the flower from the Virgin Mary. ' The music of 'The Quiet Place' is a simple meditation which explores the moods of this text often retreating into a silencewhich is both breath and transcendence. - Anne Boyd

Gustav Holst's The Wandering Scholar a one-act chamber opera for Baritone Soprano Tenor Bass and Orchestra. Edited by Benjamin Britten and Imogen Holst. Full score and Orchestral parts are availble for hire. The Wandering Scholar Holst’s last opera was written in 1929-30 and was first performed in The David Lewis Theatre Liverpool in 1934 conducted by Dr. J. E. Wallace and produced by Frederick Wilkinson. This was a few months before Holst’s death and he was too ill to go to the performance. He had no chance to revise the score which has remained unpublished until now. He leftseveral pencil queries in the margins such as ‘Tempo?’ ‘More?’ ‘More harmony?’ etc. And in one of his note-books he left queries about several words in the libretto which he had doubts about. The editors have answered these queries by making some alterations in speed and dynamics and by suggesting metronome marks throughout the work. They have also made several alterations in the libretto which they feel that Holst might have made himself if he had had the chance to revise the work with his friend Clifford Bax.

Concert Suite. Par HENZE HANS WERNER. Henze also wrote the music of the successful film Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum, co-produced by Volker Schlöndorff and Margarethe von Trotta from the novel by Heinrich Böll: 'Böll's novella is about a young woman whose life is ruined because of the persecution and slander of the German yellow press. The story is set in Cologne and its surroundings and casts a light on Germany in the Seventies: estrangement, destruction of the environment, triumph of the middle classes, use of force by the police. The music comments on these circumstances, rather than describing them. Everything that sounds soft and sentimental refers to Katharina and her friend who is pursued by the police and suspected of being a terrorist. Scenes of violence, traffic chaos and, right in the middle, the carnival of Cologne are subjects of the other pieces.'/ Répertoire / Orchestre de Chambre

Version with Piano and String Quartet - Parts)-A song cycle for baritone voice string quartet and piano. The composer writes: 'Naarasäiti (The Lustful Mother) is about becoming a mother an experience in which sexuality combines in a natural way with the birth of a new life. The texts of the cycle are from the collections of poems Äitejä tyttäriä (Árbeeadni The Time of the Lustful Mother 2013) and Kylmä kumppani (Galbma rádna My Cold Companion 1999) by two contemporary Sámi poets Rauni Magga Lukkari and Rose-Marie Huuva. The poems’ primitive matriarchal beat is present throughout in the music: a dark earthy solo viola accompanies the baritone while the sizzling sparkling strings erupt at times in powerfultextures'. Score available: WH33187 A song cycle for baritone voice string quartet and piano. The composer writes: 'Naarasäiti (The Lustful Mother) is about becoming a mother an experience in which sexuality combines in a natural way with the birth of a new life. The texts of the cycle are from the collections of poems Äitejä tyttäriä (Árbeeadni The Time of the Lustful Mother 2013) and Kylmä kumppani (Galbma rádna My Cold Companion 1999) by two contemporary Sámi poets Rauni Magga Lukkari and Rose-Marie Huuva. The poems’ primitive matriarchal beat is present throughout in the music: a dark earthy solo viola accompanies the baritone while the sizzling sparkling strings erupt at times in powerfultextures'. Score available: WH33187

For Chamber Ensemble.Commissioned by the Hebrides Ensemble and first performed on their Scottish tour in March 2010.In Seven Pierrot Miniatures I took the Commedia dell’arte character Pierrot as my primary sourceof inspiration. Other more tenuous links to Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire also served as a starting point in forming the general shape of the work. The piece is cast in seven short movements whereas the Schoenberg comprises threesets of seven movements. Although there is no part for voice I have taken seven poems by Albert Giraud (none of them set in Pierrot Lunaire) as points of departure:1. The Clouds2. Decor3. Absinthe4.Suicide5. The Church6. Sunset7. The HarpEach movement takes its impetus from the corresponding poem but in the piece as a whole I wanted to explore the extreme contrasts of the multi-faceted character ofPierrot in a musical setting. There is an almost mirror-like quality to the form of the piece and a sense of ending where it has begun: movements 1 3 5 and 7 are closely linked both in terms of their musical material and asense of melancholy dream-like quality and longing. Movements 2 and 6 are also strongly connected with allusions to the more mischievous violent side of Pierrot. Movement 4 serves as a sort-of pivotal point within the work juxtaposing a surreal shimmering calm with brutal outbursts. There is never any direct repetition yet there is a strong sense of material returning and mutating as the workunfolds.InstrumentationFlute doubling piccoloClarinet in Bb doubling Bass Clarinet in BbViolin doubling ViolaCelloPiano

I Broke Off A Golden Branch was commissioned and first performed by the Schubert Ensemble in 1992. The words ‘I broke off a golden branch’ come from a Croatian folksong which is very obliquely referred to inthe second of the work’s two movements. Judith Weir dedicated this lovely piece of chamber music for Violin Viola Cello Double Bass and Piano to William Howard. Full score. Violin Viola Cello and Double Bass partsare included separately as well. Duration ca. 15 minutes.Judith Weir is a British composer and Master of the Queen's Music. In 1994 Weir received the Critics’ Circle Music Section Award for the mostoutstanding contribution to British musical life.

Für Oboe (Klarinette), Fagott Und Klavier. Par GERNOT WOLFGANG. Die Komposition verbindet aufs Neue die zwei Lieblingsbereiche des Komponisten: die 'E'-Musik des 20. Jh. sowie den Jazz. Vom Jazz kommen die rhythmischen Elemente, während die die Einflüsse der 'E'-Musik in der kompositorischen Entwicklung sowie in den formalen Aspekten hörbar sind. In harmonischer Hinsischt fühlt sich der in L. A. /USA lebende Komponist von beiden musikalischen Welten gleichermaßen inspiriert. Endlich wurde das Repertoire in der klassischen Poulenc-Trio Besetzung um ein zeitgemäßes Werk erweitert./ Répertoire / Musique de Chambre