SKU: HL.14041762

9.0x12.0x0.071 inches.

'Romance for violin and piano is a short, reflective piece that exploits the lyrical qualities inherent in the combination. Originally written for a very young but talented violinist, Romance travels through numerous moods andcolours within a continuous musical development of the opening material. At first gentle and reflective with increasing dramatic outbursts outlined by the violin sforzandi and parallel sixths in the piano writing, numerous shortsolo passages in both instruments culminate in a fiery climax. Quickly subsiding into the calmer yet now more melancholy strains of the earlier stages of the piece, the ending is somewhat incomplete. This seems to suggest acontinuous turn of events alluded to in the music.'
             - Helen Grime



Born in 1981, Helen studied oboe with JohnAnderson and composition with Julian Anderson and Edwin Roxburgh at the Royal College of Music. She graduated from the BMus course with First Class Honours and completed her Masters with Distinction in 2004. From 2005-07, Helenwas a Legal & General Junior Fellow at the Royal College of Music. In 2003 she won a British Composer Award for her Oboe Concerto, and was awarded the intercollegiate Theodore Holland Composition Prize in 2003 as well as allthe major composition prizes in the RCM. In 2008 she was awarded a Leonard Bernstein Fellowship to study at the Tanglewood Music Center where she studied with John Harbison, Michael Gandolfi, Shulamit Ran and Augusta Read Thomas.Helen has had works commissioned by some of the most established performers and organisations including ENO, London Symphony Orchestra, BCMG, Britten Sinfonia, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra and the Tanglewood Music Center.Conductors who have performed her work include Daniel Harding, Oliver Knussen, Pierre Boulez and Yan Pascal Tortelier. Helen is the 2010 recipient of the Lili Boulanger Memorial Fund and Associate Composer of The Halle from the.

SKU: BT.YKM570369515

SKU: HL.14027994

ISBN 9788759864593.

New York is the city which fascinates and inspires Ruders. Time and again he goes back there to work. 'Manhattan Abstraction' (1982) subtitles - a symphonic skyline for large orchestra - was conceived there. Ruders' Brittish colleague Oliver Knussen defines the piece as: - a performance of an extraordinary Morden-Times-like construction. It is a sort of symphonic sculpture, which in the composer's own words words propels forth from one particular inspiration: the New York profile, as seen from Liberty Island, one icy cold January day with it's open, clear sky and dazzling sun light. 'Manhatten Abstraction' appears as an amalgam of some of the compositorical habits found in present pieces. For instance, are present here compositorical ideas and melodic loans from 'Capriccio Pian'e Forte', 2nd String Quartet(1979), 'Four Compositions' (1980), and 2nd Piano Sonata(1982). The question at hand is mainly concerned with the enhanced elaboration of Ruders' use of the classic English change-ringing system: a permuting method pre-determining the order of tone-appearances and /or tone groups; a serial technique in other words. In spite of the rigidly fixed material, Ruders somehow manages to chisel out a personal expression by way of emphasising contrasting elements already existing within the material itself. The spiky, repetitive sections form a counterpart to a more human violin-solo. This dialectical tension is - as hinted by the title - a symphonic abstraction of a fascinating metropolis; the most beautiful and the ugliest. The subtitle: a symphonic skyline reflects the musical erection of the Manhattan profile, which under the clear sky, materializes into the most powerful and compelling man-made sculpture on earth. Thus 'Manhattan Abstraction' is a homage to, as well as a vision of, this giant contraption of concrete, glass, and chrome.