SKU: HL.14002634

Mirror of Perfection, with text by St Francis of Assisi, is one of Richard Blackford's critically acclaimed choral works and was the subject of a television documentary. This work has been frequently broadcast on Classic FM and BBC Radio 3.

Mirror of Perfection was commissioned by the Royal Ballet School and first performed at the Royal College of Music March 1996.

SKU: AI.AMC-WB-003

The 1818 publication of Francis Johnson's A Collection of New Cotillions marks the first known publication of original music by a black composer in the United States. A prolific composer, instrumentalist, teacher and conductor, Johnson led a varied and successful career in an era in U.S. history that was not inviting to black professionals. His musical interests ranged from the contemporary works of Johann Strauss Jr. to traditional, popular dances.

The cotillion is a French country dance that was popular in Europe and America in the 18th century. It was originally danced by four couples in square formation and was an important influence in the development of the square dance in the United States. Francis Johnson composed two sets of six piano accompaniments for this dance. The original 1818 publication even included movement instructions for the eight dancers. The short and charming melodies that he composed are a fitting example of popular dance music of the time.

This transcription may be performed as a piano solo, with the piano as a non-solistic instrument within the ensemble or without piano at all. If it is to be a piano solo, the other instruments should not play the passages marked “opt. tacet (optional tacet). If the piano will not be treated soloistically, the conductor can have some or all of the “opt. tacet passages played at their discretion. When there is no piano involved in the performance ,all instrumentalists should ignore the “opt. tacet instruction and play everything.

SKU: PE.EP73479

ISBN 9790577019888. 297 x 210mm inches. English.

At First Light was commissioned by Eric Bruskin, a resident of Philadelphia, USA, in memory of his mother. Eric had a longstanding enthusiasm for my work, and I was touched to be the person he approached for a task which is both a privilege and a daunting responsibility. In a sense, no music can ever measure up to the weight of love or the hope of consolation vested in it under such circumstances - but in memory I carry the deaths of both my own parents, and I was able to draw upon that. Eric's fondness for my Cello Sonata (itself written in memoriam) led him to ask that I include a solo 'cello part in the new work - but his attachment also to my polyphonic sacred choral writing meant that he wanted a centrepiece which would be both a showcase of that approach and the celebration of a life well lived. Therefore, the seven movements of At First Light arrange themselves as a series of slow meditations surrounding an exuberant 9-minute motet in which the lamenting cello falls temporarily silent.

Eric's Jewish faith meant that approaching an agnostic humanist brought up within the Anglican tradition was hardly free of problems! Gradually, though, I was able to win his approval for a collated mosaic of texts. This embraces some liturgical Latin (necessary for the motet) as the shared preserve of broad western culture in general, but balances it with a secular approach to loss, celebration, remembrance and the many shades of our mourning those whom we see no longer. Eric was adamant that he did not want the title Requiem; but what has emerged is still a form of semi-secular Requiem in all but name, taking its title instead from a phrase in the poem by Thomas Blackburn set as the third movement. This seemed to suggest succinctly how the loss of one very close to us is an awakening into an unfamiliar world where everything is changed. Following the exuberant central movement, the texts by the Lebanese-born Kahlil Gibran and the US, Kentuckian poet Wendell Berry first address the departed loved one directly, then place us within an imaginary funeral cortege, where the perennial and universal in human experience become personal without subscribing explicitly to any particular faith (or lack of it). The final text of all is a translation of a Hebraic prayer, requested and provided by Eric Bruskin, which serves to mirror its Latin counterpart heard at the outset.

Throughout, the lamenting cello represents a commentary on the experience articulated in the text. It evokes and, in a sense, tries to embrace and sanctify the individual existential journeys of the bereft, as they in turn seek to make their own sense of what the short-lived Second World War poet Alun Lewis called 'the unbearable beauty of the dead' (movement 5).

In a modern world hostage to ever greater menace, displacement, bloodshed and anguish, I hope fervently that this music not only brings a measure of solace to the person who commissioned it, but also makes its own small contribution to bailing out the sinking ship of humanity.