SKU: HL.49045639

ISBN 9781540004796. UPC: 888680710774. 9.5x12.0x0.37 inches.

Chaconne (2016), for string quartet, was commissioned by the Daedalus Quartet to celebrate its 15th anniversary. The commission was supported by New Music USA, made possible by annual program support and/or endowment gifts from Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Helen F. Whitaker Fund, and Aaron Copland Fund for Music.My music has a substantial history with Daedalus. I composed the Third String Quartet (2008) for them, and subsequently they performed my three string quartets on several occasions and recorded them brilliantly on Bridge Records (Bridge 9352: Music of Fred Lerdahl, vol. 3). Chaconne is in one movement lasting 19 minutes. It is effectively my fourth string quartet. Quartets 1-3 form a unified cycle lasting 70 minutes. When I finished the cycle, I thought I would never write again for the medium; yet I could not resist the opportunity of working again with Daedalus. The issue was how to compose another string quartet unrelated to the earlier cycle. The solution came from my solo cello piece There and Back Again (2010), which was based on a four-bar variation pattern from a 17th-century chaconne. Unlike the asymmetrical phrases and expanding variations of much of my music, the chaconne form requires symmetrical phrases and strictly periodic variations. I wished to work again with these symmetries but on a larger scale. Chaconne also differs in character and expression from the three-quartet cycle. The cycle is inward and intense, a kind of psychological excavation. Chaconne is, for the most part, transparent and playful. Many of its textures emerge from little canons, not completely unlike the rounds that children sing. Any composer who writes in chaconne form (one thinks above all of the last movement of Bach's D minor violin partita and the finale of Brahms's Fourth Symphony) is confronted with the challenge of how to create a larger form out of a constantly repeating pattern.My Chaconne grows from paired antecedent-consequent phrases, each variation lasting eight bars. The 50 variations group into three large rotations, forming three arcs of tension and relaxation, with subtle parallel connections across the rotations. Notwithstanding my attraction to chaconne form, I purposefully disguised its symmetries and periodicities in order to build an overall dramatic shape. Fred Lerdahl.

SKU: PR.11641867S

UPC: 680160683208.

Contextures: Riots -Decade '60 was commissioned by Zubin Mehta and the Southern California Symphony Association after the successful premiere of the Concerto for Four Percussion Soloists and Orchestra. It was written during the spring and summer months of 1967. Riots stemming from resentment against the racial situation in the United States and the war in Vietnam were occurring throughout the country and inevitably invaded the composer's creative subconscious. Contextures, as the title implies, was intended to exploit various and varying textures. As the work progressed the correspondence between the fabric of music and the fabric of society became apparent and the allegory grew in significance. So I found myself translating social aspects into musical techniques. Social stratification became a polymetric situation where disparate groups function together. The conflict between the forces of expansion and the forces of containment is expressed through and opposition of tonal fluidity vs. rigidity. This is epitomized in the fourth movement, where the brass is divided into two groups - a muted group, encircled by the unmuted one, which does its utmost to keep the first group within a restricted pitch area. The playful jazzy bits (one between the first and second movements and one at the end of the piece) are simply saying that somehow in this age of turmoil and anxiety ways of having fun are found even though that fun may seem inappropriate. The piece is in five movements, with an interlude between the first and second movements. It is scored for a large orchestra, supplemented by six groups of percussion, including newly created roto-toms (small tunable drums) and some original devices, such as muted gongs and muted vibraphone. There is also an offstage jazz quartet: bass, drums, soprano saxophone and trumpet. The first movement begins with a solo by the first clarinetist which is interrupted by intermittent heckling from his colleagues leading to a configuration of large disparate elements. The interlude of solo violin and snare-drum follows without pause. The second movement, Prestissimo, is a display piece of virtuosity for the entire orchestra. The third movement marks a period of repose and reflection and calls for some expressive solos, particularly by the horn and alto saxophone. The fourth movement opens with a rather lengthy oboe solo, which is threatened by large blocks of sound from the orchestra, against an underlying current of agitated energy in the piano and percussion. This leads to a section in which large orchestral forces oppose one another, ultimately bringing the work to a climax, if not to a denouement. Various thematic elements are strewn all over the orchestra, resulting in the formation of a general haze of sound. A transition leads to the fifth movement without pause. The musical haze is pierced gently by the offstage jazz group as if they were attempting to ignore and even dispel the gloom, but a legato bell sound enters and hovers over both the jazz group and the orchestra, the latter making statements of disquieting finality. Two films were conceived to accompany portions of Contextures. The first done by Herbert Kosowar, was a chemography film (painting directly into the film using dyes and various implements) with fast clips of riot photographs. The second was a film collage made by photographically abstracting details from paintings of Reginald Pollack. The purpose was to invoke a non-specific response - as in music - but at the same time to define the subject matter of the piece. The films were constructed to correspond with certain developments in the piece and in no way affect the independence and musical flow of the piece, having been made after the piece was completed. Contextures: Riots - Decade '60 is dedicated to Mehta, the Southern California Symphony Association and the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra. The news of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King came the afternoon of the premiere, April 4, 1968. That evening's performances, and also the succeeding ones, were dedicated to him and a special dedication to Dr. King has been inserted into he score. All the music that follows the jazz group - beginning with the legato bell sound playing the first 2 notes to We shall overcome constitutes a new ending to commemorate Dr. King's death.

SKU: CA.2380193

Text language: German. Text: Schiller, Friedrich.

It's about 200 years since Beethoven scribbled down a theme in D minor in his sketch book, which he later used, slightly altered, in the 2nd movement of his 9th Symphony. Beethoven had thought of setting Schiller's Ode to Joy much earlier. As early as 1803 Ferdinand Ries mentioned a complete setting of the text by Beethoven which no longer survives. The vocal score of the finale of the 9th Symphony is based on the vocal score made by Carl Reinecke around the end of the 19th century. The version by Reinecke, popular worldwide, closely reflects the sound of the orchestral writing, yet at the same time is remains playable. Stefan Schuck has revised this historic vocal score, in the process taking into account recent research findings. The new Carus vocal score contains rehearsal letters from all current versions of the orchestral material, and is thus compatible with all available music editions. In the presentation of this edition, particular attention has been paid to the practical needs of (choral) singers and repetiteurs.

SKU: CA.2380191

Text language: German. Text: Schiller, Friedrich.

It's about 200 years since Beethoven scribbled down a theme in D minor in his sketch book, which he later used, slightly altered, in the 2nd movement of his 9th Symphony. Beethoven had thought of setting Schiller's Ode to Joy much earlier. As early as 1803 Ferdinand Ries mentioned a complete setting of the text by Beethoven which no longer survives. The vocal score of the finale of the 9th Symphony is based on the vocal score made by Carl Reinecke around the end of the 19th century. The version by Reinecke, popular worldwide, closely reflects the sound of the orchestral writing, yet at the same time is remains playable. Stefan Schuck has revised this historic vocal score, in the process taking into account recent research findings. The new Carus vocal score contains rehearsal letters from all current versions of the orchestral material, and is thus compatible with all available music editions. In the presentation of this edition, particular attention has been paid to the practical needs of (choral) singers and repetiteurs.

SKU: TM.06008SET

March (Alceste), Menuet (Iphigenie en Aulide), Grazioso (Paride e Elena), Slave Dance (Iphigenie en Aulide).

SKU: HL.14032247

UPC: 888680688790. 9.25x14.25x3.722 inches.

Carl Nielsen Collected Works Section II: Vol. 5. 1998 edition. Instrumentation: Flutes 1-3, Oboes 1-2, Clarinets 1-2, Bassoons 1-2, Horns 1-4, Trumpets 1-2, Trombones 1-2, Bass Trombone, Tuba, Timpani, Percussion, Triangle, Drum, 8 Violin 1, 7 Violin 2, 6 Viola, 5 Cello, 4 Double Bass.

SKU: TM.08805SC

SKU: BR.MR-2239B

ISBN 9790004488478. 9 x 12 inches.

There are two known manuscript sources for the present edition of this sinfonia avanti l'opera. In the Dean and Chapter Library of Durham Cathedral it appears as the twelfth, and last, piece in a collection of late seventeenth-century Italian instrumental music. No composer is given and identification was only possible following the discovery, in 1993, of a concordant source in the Biblioteca Estense, Modena, where the work appears as the sinfonia to Perti's opera L'Inganno scoperto per Vendetta, first performed in Venice as part of the 1690/1 season.It is sometimes hard to ascertain the original functional purpose behind many of the trumpet works written by composers of the Bolognese school as it would appear that some were used as sonate da chiesa, to celebrate mass in the basilica of San Petronio, Bologna, whilst also serving as operatic sinfonie. To confuse the issue further, there are several instances of composers 'borrowing' each other's works: for example, it has recently been discovered that the Torelli trumpet sinfonia a 4 catalogued as G4 in Giegling was used as the overture to Perti's opera Nerone fatto Cesare (1693). So far as the present edition is concerned, however, stylistic considerations would appear to confirm that the work is indeed by Perti and that it was originally conceived as the overture to L'Inganno scoperto per Vendetta. A couple of clues hint at a secular raison d'etre: the Durham source is marked Serenatto (presumably a corruption of serenata, a term often used in lieu of sinfonia) and the last movement of the Modena source is marked Menuet, a term more often associated with sonate da camera than with works of ecclesiastical provenance.Both the Modena and Durham sources for the present edition are virtually note-perfect and occasional inaccuracies were easily corrected by comparing the sources with each other and with the part-books in Durham. Whilst the Modena source lacks the second violin part in the outer movements it contains fuller dynamic markings and tempi indications than the Durham source and these have been followed in the present edition with no editorial additions. Notation has been modernised and, in the piano reduction edition, right-hand arpeggio-figurations rendered more pianistic. Parts are provided for trumpet in D and B flat. I am grateful to the Dean and Chapter of Durham and to the Biblioteca Estense, Modena, for providing microfilm of the manuscripts. I should also record my thanks to Keith Wright for realising the figured-bass which appears in the full-score edition.Mark Latham, Brancepeth Castle, June 1997.

SKU: TM.08588SET

P/C in set.