SKU: PR.416413010

UPC: 680160605682.

Under the Sun's Gaze as a title for a musical composition conjures up many possibilities. It is, in fact, an imagined line from an unwritten poem, invented with the idea of capturing something of the visual aura the sounds and energy of this work invoke in its composer' mind. An omnipotent presence in all of nature, a source of life yet also capable of its destruction, the sun affects the light and dark in our physical existence as it defines the daily and seasonal life. The music of this work, in three interlocking parts, takes turns being exuberant, caressing, scorching, receding, hazy, lazy, blazing, dissolving into darkness, blinding in its intensity. Subtitled Concerto da Camera III, this work is written for what has become known as the standard Pierrot instrumentation of flute, clarinet, violin, cello, piano plus percussion. The difference here is that the winds are doubled - the two flutists alternating with piccolo and alto flute and both clarinetists also doubling on bass clarinets. The ninth member of the ensemble, a soprano saxophone, appears well into the piece, its lyrical, plaintively expressive quality dominating the musical terrain for a while. While occasionally joining the others for some tutti outbursts, it maintains its position as something of a guest throughout. Of the various thematic ideas that populate this work, a six-note descending line played by the clarinet appearing right at the work's opening then arching back up reveals itself, as the music unfolds, to be the principal melodic building block of Under the Sun's Gaze. Its various transformations include the plaintive soprano saxophone melody appearing in the middle section. Just under 20 minutes in length, the work in its totality can be heard as being in a loose arch form, its ending receding into a distant darkening horizon which carries in it the seed of the new dawn that lies beyond. Under the Sun's Gaze was commissioned by the Serge Koussevitzky Music Foundation in the Library of Congress for the San Francisco Contemporary Players, David Milnes, conductor.

SKU: BT.EMBZ1763

French.

'Two pieces of scherzo character in triple time flank a slower movement in duple time. The first burlesque entitled 'Quarrel' is Márta's piece, Nov. 1908, is a dispute between two opposing characters, with grimaces and taunts. The second burlesque, with the subtitle 'Slightly Tipsy' or 'A bit drunk' is one of Bartók's ingenious programme music miniatures, with characteristic performance indications. The figure appearing in a stumbling rhythm begins to sing indifferently, then continues ruvido (coarsely). By the end of the middle section, to be played in dry tone, our hero collapses completely, and takes leave as a pitiful figure, like the wooden puppet after the dance in The WoodenPrince ballet. ...Finally, the titleless third burlesque, Molto vivo, capriccioso, also stimulates the imagination: one can detect in it the grotesque rush of the last bagatelle, 'My Dancing Sweetheart,' just like the Wooden Prince dance. (HCD 32525 Bartók New Series Vol. 25, László Somfai).

SKU: BT.DHP-0910269-230

This colourful and beautiful composition by Tony Jabovsky combines Eastern melodies and Jamaican rhythms in an imaginative and creative manner.

Samorim est une œuvre riche en couleurs sonores nées de la combinaison du caractère mélodique de la musique arabe et des motifs rythmiques de la musique jama caine. Une œuvre pleine de fantaisie, orientale et latino-américaine la fois et qui fait appel l’imaginaire de chacun d’entre nous.

SKU: HL.14030979

Parts available: KP00248 The composer writes: The slow choral-like music which initiates Adieu was the result of an image or almost a dream that I had. Without being able to explain why, I imagined a procession of people, maybe medieval munks, wearing large gray mantles with Ku-Klux-Klan-like white cowls on their heads, something like a funeral procession. The title Adieu is partly a comment on this funeral procession, but also used because the piece is split up by three slow-ascending glissandi, a kind of farewell glissandi which removes the intervening music. The first absorbing glissando is soft and removes both the slow funeral choral and the agitating figures in the first half of the piece. The second glissando is given only to the cello and crawls out from the elegiac melodies in the middle part. The third and final glissando is intense and agitating, and prepares the way for the end of the piece. This end primarily deals with the relationship fast - slow. This relationship is turned topsy turvy: the music gets faster and faster until it is so fast that it suddenly becomes slow, so slow in fact that it is very quickly able to become extremely fast again.