SKU: TM.04905SET

March of Amazons on Troy; Penth's Dream of the Rose Festival; Strife,Fury,Frenzy,Destruction.

SKU: TM.04905SC

March of Amazons on Troy; Penth's Dream of the Rose Festival; Strife,Fury,Frenzy,Destruction.

SKU: KJ.SO183F

Listen to this one! It's a programmatic work depicting the interplay between opponents during the composer's favorite board game, Risk. Ponticello, col legno, and other special techniques are employed.

SKU: CF.YAS210

ISBN 9781491160442. UPC: 680160919031.

In the dim moonlight on a night long past a rider emerges from the fog and slowly dares to cross a mysterious and unsettling bridge. The trembling rider hesitates, unsure whether he is more nervous about the legend of the headless horseman or the creaking and shifting he feels under his own horse's hooves. Haunted Bridges is a work for string orchestra inspired by Washington Irving's Ichabod Crane and his ill-fated ride in Sleepy Hollow. The piece contains allusions to the tune London Bridge is Falling Down, first as a creeping counter-melody and later as a theme in a twisted 3/4 section whose shifting harmonic progression draws to mind the fall of the fabled bridge. Haunted Bridges contains alternating F/C sharps and naturals throughout and devilishly unpredictable harmonic patterns. The piece also calls for numerous extended techniques that students will enjoy, including playing behind the bridge, sul ponticello, portamento, and seagull glissandi. Special techniques: Haunted Bridges calls for a handful of extended techniques, most of which are self explanatory or commonly known. The technique appearing in the Violin II part from measures 58-72 may require some additional explanation. This figure is sometimes referred to as seagull glissando and is achieved by lightly touching the finger to the string and gliding up and down the string, producing many transient natural harmonics as the finger crosses the nodes of the string. It is suggested to start with the 3rd finger on the A string and slowly glissando up beyond the natural A harmonic, then slowly back down, continuing in this pattern until measure 73. It is also intended for each player to vary their speed slightly so that the timing of the glissandi are all a little different, resulting in a shimmering, aleatoric effect.
In the dim moonlight on a night long past a rider emerges from the fog and slowly dares to cross a mysterious and unsettling bridge. The trembling rider hesitates, unsure whether he is more nervous about the legend of the headless horseman or the creaking and shifting he feels under his own horse's hooves. Haunted Bridges is a work for string orchestra inspired by Washington Irving's Ichabod Crane and his ill-fated ride in Sleepy Hollow. The piece contains allusions to the tune London Bridge is Falling Down, first as a creeping counter-melody and later as a theme in a twisted 3/4 section whose shifting harmonic progression draws to mind the fall of the fabled bridge. Haunted Bridges contains alternating F/C  sharps and naturals throughout and devilishly unpredictable harmonic patterns. The piece also calls for numerous extended techniques that students will enjoy, including playing behind the bridge, sul ponticello, portamento, and seagull glissandi.Special techniques:Haunted Bridges calls for a handful of extended techniques, most of which are self explanatory or commonly known. The technique appearing in the Violin II part from measures 58-72 may require some additional explanation. This figure is sometimes referred to as seagull glissando and is achieved by lightly touching the finger to the string and gliding up and down the string, producing many transient natural harmonics as the finger crosses the nodes of the string. It is suggested to start with the 3rd finger on the A string and slowly glissando up beyond the natural A harmonic, then slowly back down, continuing in this pattern until measure 73. It is also intended for each player to vary their speed slightly so that the timing of the glissandi are all a little different, resulting in a shimmering, aleatoric effect.

About Carl Fischer Young String Orchestra Series

This series of Grade 2/Grade 2.5 pieces is designed for second and third year ensembles. The pieces in this series are characterized by:
--Occasionally extending to third position
--Keys carefully considered for appropriate difficulty
--Addition of separate 2nd violin and viola parts
--Viola T.C. part included
--Increase in independence of parts over beginning levels

SKU: CF.YAS235

ISBN 9781491164877. UPC: 680160923786. Key: E minor.

(De)composition explores the myriad of sounds possible on a string instrument. These sounds are regularly used in movie music to highlight the storyline, feeling, or character. Musicians use the wood part of the bow, slide their fingers on the fingerboard, play with their bow on the wrong side of the bridge, and many other techniques to create this creepy and mysterious (de)composition.Performance SuggestionsStudents hear extended techniques in movies, TV shows, and even commercials. These sounds are expressive and contextually meaningful but are rarely used in student-level orchestra music. In (De)composition, the extended techniques are essential to the overall sound and structure. Glissandi help students move their hands out of first position but allow the freedom of playing random notes. In addition, students will use their bows in new ways, such as chop, behind the bridge, tremolo, sul ponticello, and col legno.

About Carl Fischer Young String Orchestra Series

This series of Grade 2/Grade 2.5 pieces is designed for second and third year ensembles. The pieces in this series are characterized by:
--Occasionally extending to third position
--Keys carefully considered for appropriate difficulty
--Addition of separate 2nd violin and viola parts
--Viola T.C. part included
--Increase in independence of parts over beginning levels

SKU: PR.16400272S

UPC: 680160588442. 8.5 x 11 inches.

My third quartet is laid out in a three-movement structure, with each movement based on an early, middle, and late work of the great American impressionist painter Mary Cassatt. Although the movements are separate, with full-stop endings, the music is connected by a common scale-form, derived from the name MARY CASSATT, and by a recurring theme that introduces all three movements. I see this theme as Mary's Theme, a personality that stays intact while undergoing gradual change.   I The Bacchante (1876) [Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania]   The painting shows a young girl of Italian or Spanish origin, playing a small pair of cymbals. Since Cassatt was trying very hard to fit in at the French Academy at the time, she painted a lot of these subjects, which were considered typical and universal. The style of the painting doesn't yet show Cassatt's originality, except perhaps for certain details in the face. Accordingly the music for this movement is Spanish/Italian, in a similar period-style but using the musical signature described above. The music begins with Mary's Theme, ruminative and slow, then abruptly changes to an alla Spagnola-type fast 3/4 - 6/8 meter. It evokes the Spanish-influenced music of Ravel and Falla.   Midway through, there's an accompanied recitative for the viola, which figures large in this particular movement, then back to a truncated recapitulation of the fast music. The overall feeling is of a well-made, rather conventional movement in a contemporary Spanish/Italian style. Cassatt's painting, too, is rather conventional.   II At the Opera (1880) [Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts]   This painting is one of Cassatt's most well known works, and it hangs in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. The painting shows a woman alone in a box at the opera house, completely dressed (including gloves) and looking through opera glasses at someone or something that is NOT on the stage. Across the auditorium from her, but exactly at eye level, is a gentleman with opera glasses intently watching her - though it is not him that she's looking at. It's an intriguing picture.   This movement is far less conventional than the first movement, as the painting is far less conventional. The music begins with a rapid, Shostakovich-type mini-overture lasting less than a minute, based on Mary's Theme. My conjecture is that the woman in the painting has arrived late to the opera, busily stumbling into her box. What happens next is a kind of collage, a kind of surrealistic overlaying of two different elements: the foreground music, at first is a direct quotation of Soldier's Chorus from Gounod's FAUST (an opera Cassatt would certainly have heard in the brand-new Paris Opera House at that time), played by Violin II, Viola, and Cello. This music is played sul ponticello in the melody and col legno in the marching accompaniment. On top of this, the first violin hovers at first on a high harmonic, then descends into a slow melody, completely separate from the Gounod. It's as if the woman in the painting is hearing the opera onstage but is not really interested in it. Then the cello joins the first violin in a kind of love-duet (just the two of them, at first). This music isn't at all Gounod-derived; it's entirely from the same scale patterns as the first movement and derives from Mary's Theme and its scale. The music stays in a kind of dichotomy feeling, usually three-against-one, until the end of the movement, when another Gounod melody, Valentin's aria Avant de quitter ce lieux reappears in a kind of coda for all four players. It ends atmospherically and emotionally disconnected, however. The overall feeling is a kind of schizophrenic, opera-inspired dream.   III Young Woman in Green, Outdoors in the Sun (1909) [Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts]   The painting, one of Cassatt's last, is very simple: just a figure, looking sideways out of the picture. The colors are pastel and yet bold - and the woman is likewise very self-assured and not in the least demure. It is eight minutes long, and is all about melody - three melodies, to be exact (Young Woman, Green, and Sunlight). No angst, no choppy rhythms, just ever-unfolding melody and lush harmonies. I quote one other French composer here, too: Debussy's song Green, from Ariettes Oubliees. 1909 would have been Debussy's heyday in Paris, and it makes perfect sense musically as well as visually to do this.   Mary Cassatt lived her last several years in near-total blindness, and as she lost visual acuity, her work became less sharply defined - something akin to late water lilies of Monet, who suffered similar vision loss. My idea of making this movement entirely melodic was compounded by having each of the three melodies appear twice, once in a pure form, and the second time in a more diffuse setting. This makes an interesting two ways form: A-B-C-A1-B1-C1.   String Quartet No.3 (Cassatt) is dedicated, with great affection and respect, to the Cassatt String Quartet, whose members have dedicated themselves in large measure to the furthering of the contemporary repertoire for quartet.