SKU: FG.55011-372-5

ISBN 9790550113725.

Images of the sea figure prominently throughout my life and memories: from holidays on the Atlantic coast during my Canadian childhood to my current Baltic home, and the imagined, only later experienced Mediterranean of my ancestral heritage. As an immigrant (son of an immigrant) bound to two northern countries, the sea is emblematic of my twin homelands, from the expanses of water surrounding them to those separating them. A Mari usque ad Mare. The sea is also an enduring image of the unknown, of expanses unexplored, of the raw power of nature and, for too many currently, of terror holding a hope of refuge - or the pain of loss.
Such disparate ideas were captured for me in the seascapes of the New York painter MaryBeth Thielhelm, whom I met in 2008 during a residency on the Gulf of Mexico. Her vast, abstract, nearly monochromatic depictions of imaginary seas in wildly varying moods were the catalyst for a concerto where the piano is frequently far from a hero battling a collective, but rather acts as a channel for elemental forces surging up from the orchestra, floating - sometimes barely so - on its constantly shifting surface. There are few themes to speak of, beyond a handful of iconic ideas that periodically cycle upward. Rather, the piano's material is largely an ornamentation of the more primal rhythmic and harmonic impulses from the orchestra below - a poetic interpretation, if you will, of the more immediate experience of facing the vastness of some unknown body of water.
The title Nameless Seas is borrowed from one of Thielhelm's exhibitions, as are those of the four movements, which are bridged together into two halves of roughly equal weight - one rhapsodic and free, the other more single-minded and direct, separated only by a short breath. The opening movement, Nocturne, is predominantly calm, if brooding, darkness and light alternating throughout. Lyrical arabesques sparkle over gently lapping cross-currents in the strings and mirrored timpani, the piano's full power only rarely deployed. The waves gradually build, drawing in the full orchestra for a meeting of forces in Land and Sea, a brighter, more warmly lyrical scene that unfolds in series of dreamlike, sometimes even nostalgic visions, which for me carry strong memories of sitting on rocks above surging Atlantic waves. The third movement, Wake, is a fast, perpetual-motion texture of glinting, darting rhythms and sudden shafts of light, with a prominent part for the steel drums, limning the piano's quicksilver figurations. An ecstatic climax crashes into a solo cadenza that grows progressively calmer and more introspective rather than virtuosic. Much of the tension finally releases into Unclaimed Waters, a drifting, meditative seascape in which the piano is progressively engulfed by a series of ever-taller waves, ultimately dissolving into a tolling, rippling continuum of sound.
It has been a great privilege to realize such a long-held dream as this piece, and to write it for not one, but two great pianists. Risto-Matti Marin and Angela Hewitt, both of whose friendship and support have been unfailing and humbling, share the dedication. Nameless Seas was commissioned by the PianoEspoo festival and Canada's National Arts Centre, with the premieres in Ottawa and Helsinki led by Hannu Lintu and Olari Elts. Thanks are due also to the Jenny and Antti Wihuri fund, whose generous grant provided me with much-needed time, and Escape to Create in Seaside, Florida, the source to which I returned to do a large part of the work.

SKU: SA.41762

ISBN 9781608741762. 9.5 x 12.5 inches.

Composed in the late summer of 1876, Dvorak's first effort at a full-blown concerto shows signs of an unusual amount of revision in the composer's hand - especially for the solo piano part. This might explain the delay in the concerto's premiere, which was given at the Provisional Theatre in Prague on March 24, 1878 with Karel Slavkovsky as soloist accompanied by the Provisional Theatre Orchestra under the baton of Adolf Cech. The composer himself wrote: I see I am unable to write a Concerto for a virtuoso; I must think of other things. The ungainly solo part no doubt also played a role in the work's dely in publication, which didn't take place until 1883. Even after this, and despite much beauty in the music itself, performances were scarce due to the difficulty and charchter of the solo part. The solo part was revised heavily by the Czech pianist Vilem Kurz (1872-1945), whose version was premired by his daughter Ilona KurzovA! and the Czech Philharmonic on December 9, 1919 and is the one most often performed today. This new study score is a digitally enhanced reissue of the full score first published in 1956 by the Czech State Publishers as part of the Dvorak collected works, edited by Jiri Berkovec and Karel Solc, which includes both the composer's original solo part and the re-arranged one made by Kurz. Unlike so many of the on-demand scores now available, this one comes with all the pages and the images have been thoroughly checked to make sure it is readable. As with all PLP scores a percentage of each sale is donated to the amazing online archive of free music scores and recordings, IMSLP - Petrucci Music Library.

SKU: SU.94010541

Solo Piano part with piano reduction.

Instrumentation: solo pno: picc, 2fl ob 3cl,bcl bn 2asx 2tsx bsx; 4tpt 4hn 3tbn euph tba; timp 5perc; cb
Duration: 24'
Composed: 2015
Published by: Subito Music Publishing
Performance materials available on rental only from the Subito Music Rental Library.