SKU: BO.B.3664

Cuarteto San Petersburgo (The Saint Petersburg Quartet) was written between January and March 2011. It owes its name to the fact that Saint Petersburg has been a very significant city for me. I was invited there in 1988 to take part in a big contemporary music festival, but my uninterrupted bond with the city started on 2002, thanks to the negotiations of my friend and pupil Albert Barbeta. Since then, I have constantly travelled there in order to record a considerable part of my repertoire: seventeen pieces. In addition to the concerts we went to, I took the opportunity during my trips to visit the well-known conservatoire where so many great personalities from the world of music composition once taught, and the place that launched the most important violin school in the whole of Russia: the school of Leopoldo Auer. Spending a long time in Auer's classroom writing my concert for violin and orchestra was an unforgettable experience for me. His large portrait motivated me even further.

Cuarteto San Petersburgo evokes many of the most cherished and moving moments that I have had in this city. It is structured in four movements. The first one, Allegretto-Allegro, opens with an introduction that sets forth the two main themes, amid a soft and elastic atmosphere. The Allegro starts vigorously and in it we find changes in the tempo and moments of mystery, as well as certain seclusion, returning then to the emphatic theme where the counterpoint finds its place. The movement ends placidly.

The Scherzo-marcato that follows is marked by a persistent rhythm of triplets that carries on from beginning to end. The tempo does not change, but brief and decided themes are introduced, as well as passages of counterpoint. Brief and dissonant chords are heard throughout the movement, which ends vigorously.

The third movement, Ut, is a very special one. For a while already I had been playing with the idea of writing a movement that was to have the tonality C as a leitmotiv. This one is made up by two slow and static parts. In the first one, the first violin plays pizzicatti-glissandi. In the second, the first violin and particularly the violoncello settle on C while the other two instruments produce descending chromatic harmonies.

Finally, the Introduccion-Presto (the Introduction-Presto). It starts with some bucolic passages which remind us of the introduction to the first movement. A fast and energetic Presto suddenly erupts. A kind of moto perpetuo which alternates with two expressive passages and, towards the end, a viola and violoncello tremolo, all of great mystery and expectation, make way for a resounding finale marcato.

SKU: BT.EMBZ14779

The arranger of this work (a well-known Hungarian composer living in Romania) writes: This piece has always excited my imagination, from several points of view. First of all, its name. The German title, the obstinate one, may refer to its ostinato character. This is close to Liszt's programme concept, but the French word 'obstiné' is closer in meaning to stubborn. There is just a shade of difference, but to me it is important, because the latter suggests the description of a type of behaviour, the emotional state of a dancer's inner frame of mind abstracted into movements, expressed in dance movements, and this is a fascinating interpretation. The demonstration ofstubborn resistance and defiance to the point of exhaustion was not a frequently occurring phenomenon with Liszt. Secondly, at the beginning of the seventies Zoltán Kocsis played the piece in Transylvania. At that time, I asked the composer, Is the character of the continuous staccato in the left hand sharp, short, or an accompanying background like a constant shadow? Is it a weighty Brahmsian staccato, an ominous knocking? - and so on. Then there are the Bartókian false relations that keep recurring in the work, the B-E flat-G, etc. That foreshadows Debussy, creating harmonic thrills that, when I hear the work, keep my continuing interest alive for it. Finally, my immediate reason for arranging the work was of a family nature: in connection with Liszt's jubilee year, my daughter, who is a cellist, wanted a 'more energetic' piece to play at a bicentenary concert an addition to the existing slow, lyrical, or sombre works written by Liszt for the cello.

The arranger of this work, the well-known Romania-based Hungarian composer Cs ky Boldizsár writes: This piece has always excited my imagination, from several points of view. First of all, its name. The German title, the obstinateone, may refer to its ostinato character, this is close to Liszt's programme concept, but the French word 'obstiné' is closer in meaning to stubborn. There is just a shade of difference, but to me it is important, because the lattersuggests the description of a type of behaviour, the emotional state of a dancer's inner frame of mind abstracted into movements, expressed in dance movements, and this is a fascinating interpretation. The demonstration of stubbornresistance , defiance to the point of exhaustion, was not a frequently occurring phenomenon with Liszt. Secondly, at the beginning of the seventies Zoltán Kocsis played the piece here in Transylvania (Romania).

Der Bearbeiter des Werkes, der renommierte ungarische Komponist aus Rumänien, schreibt: Dieses Stück reizte immer schon meine Phantasie, sogar in vielerlei Hinsicht. Als erstes sein Name. Der deutsche Titel ‚Hartnäckiger' kann auf den ihm innewohnenden ostinativen Charakter hinweisen, was der Liszt'schen Programm-Konzeption näher kommt, das französische ,obstiné' steht jedoch eher dem Wort ‚dickköpfig' nah. Das sind nur geringfügige Unterschiede, mir ist das dennoch wichtig, weil aus Letzterem die Darstellung eines Verhaltens, der in Tanzgesten ausgedrückte, zur Bewegung abstrahierte innere emotionale Zustand eines Tänzers durchscheint, und das ist eine überaus beeindruckendeErklärung. Die Demonstration des bis zur Erschöpfung reichenden Trotzes, der störrischen Kraft erscheint bei Liszt selten. Der zweite Aspekt: Zu Beginn der 70er Jahre spielte bei uns Zoltán Kocsis das Stück. Schon damals (und seitdem) frage ich den Komponisten:.

SKU: JK.01985

UPC: 009328501985.

Presenting the newest addition to the popular Hymn-Alongs series: Christmas Hymn-Alongs!
The Hymn-Alongs series includes over 20 different instrumental books. They are simple enough for developing musicians to master, yet beautiful and fun for those advancing in music.
The accompaniment book features beautiful, yet simple arrangments for piano, guitar (chord symbols), and voice. The many instrumental books can be played together in any combination. All instrument books include a melody part; treble instruments have a duet part, and bass instruments also include a bass part.
View all Christmas Hymn-Alongs products HERE.


Songs included in Christmas Hymn-Alongs:
Angels We Have Heard on High
Away in a Manger
Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day
It Came upon the Midnight Clear
Joy to the World
O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
O Little Town of Bethlehem
Oh, Come, All Ye Faithful
O Holy Night
Silent Night
The First Noel
We Three Kings
What Child Is This?

Composer: Various
Arranger: Brent Jorgensen
Difficulty: Easy
hymn along, hymnalongs, hymnalong, hymn alongs.

SKU: FG.55011-510-1

ISBN 9790550115101.

Matthew Whittall's preface to Bright Ferment (2019): I have a complicated history with the string quartet. Actually, it's not that complicated. I spent months writing a huge one in my early twenties and hastily withdrew it after a long delayed premiere, vowing never to write another. In a typical case of karmic retribution, my fear of the form would eventually be overcome by the unrefusable offer to write the compulsory piece for the Banff International String Quartet Competition in my native Canada. The short duration requested, about nine minutes, also felt like a good way to wade gingerly back into the medium. The title was originally just a nice-sounding pair of words that surfaced in a brainstorming session with fellow composer Alex Freeman over an injudicious amount of fermented barley. When I looked it up later, I found that it was a phrase of older coinage, seemingly used more for poetic resonance than any fixed meaning. Ferment by itself denotes a state of confusion, change or lack of order. With bright, it takes on a more positive connotation with regard to society and creativity: a wild profusion of ideas barely checked by reason. (It may not actually mean that, but it describes this piece nicely, so let's go with it.) Fermentation in its trendy culinary usage is also hinted at via a recurrent percolating device of scattered pizzicati. As one may guess from the tone of this introduction, there is little attempt at gravity in Bright Ferment, the only means by which I felt I could sidestep the historical and expressive weight of the string quartet genre. Styles, gestures and moods are tossed around, cross-cut and abandoned in stream-of-consciousness fashion, connected by little except an intuitive sense of rightness in their juxtaposition. If the piece acquires depth in spite of me, it will only be because its disparate parts amplify and strengthen each other simply by being together - much like the ensemble itself. Bright Ferment was commissioned by the Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativity and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, with additional funding from the Americas Society (New York), for the 2019 Banff International String Quartet Competition. Duration: ca. 9 minutes.

SKU: BR.EB-9243

ISBN 9790004185438. 9 x 12 inches.

It was the practice of Khoomii (throat singing) - following several workshops with Michael Ormiston - that first attracted me to Tuvan music. Composing this Songbook, the first in a series commissioned by the Ligeti Quartet, I took the chance to reflect on compositional questions around transcription and arrangement of existing music, and frequently found myself asking: where is the boundary between the source material and the new substance? Of course the relationship varies from piece to piece, and moment to moment: sometimes we seem to glimpse the pure source, but most of the time there are differing degrees of distance, working towards or away from it. This new version for string orchestra corresponds closely to the original quartet version, with an additional part for double basses.The traditional Tuvan songs that I have transcribed and recomposed are all known to me from the Ay Kherel CD The Music of Tuva: Throat Singing and Instruments from Central Asia (2004, Arc Music). According to the notes from that CD, this is what the songs are about:1. Dyngylday: If you have come on a horse in blue, it doesn't mean that you are the best. My heart tells me something else: my sweetheart doesn't have such a beautiful horse, but he is my darling.An alternative interpretation from Alash Ensemble (alashensemble.com): The word dyngylday is a nonsense term with no translation. The song makes good-humored fun of somebody for being a good-for-nothing.2. Eki Attar (The Best Steeds): The horse is the basis of our life. It is a magic creature. Even its step is full of music and rhythm. You may not be a horse rider, but when you hear this song you will always remember horses.3. Kuda Yry: This wedding song glorifies the strength of the groom and the beauty of his Horse.4. Ezir-Kara ('Black Eagle'): This was the name of a horse, who became a legend through his remarkable strength and speed.It is not just overtones that abound here: there are galloping rhythms aplenty, and though I am no horse rider I tried to keep the horses galloping in my imagination while composing these pieces.Christian Mason (with quotes from Ay Kherel and Alash Ensemble)

World premiere of the original version: London/UK, May 10, 2016, World premiere of the string orchestra version: Clermont-Ferrand/France, October 8, 2020.

SKU: HL.51483306

UPC: 196288206811. 9.25x12.0x0.071 inches.

The serenade flourished in Mozart's era, but with Brahms the genre experienced a new surge in popularity in the 19th century. Dvorák's cheerful and relaxed op. 22 came into being in 1875, during a very happy time for him both professionally and privately. Heput his personal stamp on the five-movement composition by incorporating stylized Slavonic dances. The spirited finale captivates by restating themes from the previous movements. Since its premiere in 1876 the work, with its melodic richness and particular harmonic modulations, has enjoyed great acclaim from audiences and critics alike. Today it is among Dvorák's most popular and most frequently performed compositions. As well as the autograph and printed editions, the composer's copy of the printed score with autograph corrections and additions has been consulted for Henle's Urtext edition.

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