SKU: CA.3810409

ISBN 9790007215064. Language: Latin.

At the age of just 20, Johann Christian Bach, the youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach, the Kantor of St. Thomas's, left behind the Lutheran musical tradition of his family: he went to Italy, converted to Catholicism there and successfully composed operas for Turin, Milan and Naples. Frequently overlooked are the Catholic Bach's exquisite church music works, almost all written in the years 1757-1760, and which had a significant influence on his time in Italy. These include large-scale Vesper settings with impressive, symphonic-style instrumental introductions, sometimes anticipating Mozartian idioms. Bach's Domine ad adjuvandum me, an immediately captivating work, was written for the opening of Vespers; it seems to be carried along by a sense of euphoric purpose and a dynamic lightheartedness which positively radiates southern European temperament. The work is published in the authoritative Stuttgart Urtext edition, based on the rediscovered Hamburg autograph manuscript. Score and parts available separately - see item CA.3810400.

SKU: CA.3810449

ISBN 9790007215125. Language: Latin.

At the age of just 20, Johann Christian Bach, the youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach, the Kantor of St. Thomas's, left behind the Lutheran musical tradition of his family: he went to Italy, converted to Catholicism there and successfully composed operas for Turin, Milan and Naples. Frequently overlooked are the Catholic Bach's exquisite church music works, almost all written in the years 1757-1760, and which had a significant influence on his time in Italy. These include large-scale Vesper settings with impressive, symphonic-style instrumental introductions, sometimes anticipating Mozartian idioms. Bach's Domine ad adjuvandum me, an immediately captivating work, was written for the opening of Vespers; it seems to be carried along by a sense of euphoric purpose and a dynamic lightheartedness which positively radiates southern European temperament. The work is published in the authoritative Stuttgart Urtext edition, based on the rediscovered Hamburg autograph manuscript. Score and part available separately - see item CA.3810400.

SKU: BA.BVK02305

ISBN 9783761823057. 23.5 x 16 cm inches. Preface: Helmut Loos.

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy as letter-writer: at the heart of 19th century European culture

As one of the most important letter-writers of the 19th century, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy maintained an extensive correspondence. With great style and eloquence he wrote letters to friends and family, letters from his travels and he also wrote to leading composers, musicians, artists as well as publishers. He corresponded with famous contemporaries such as Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner as well as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Carl Friedrich Zelter and Alexander von Humboldt.

The correspondence begins in 1816 and ends in 1847 with the composer’s death. These letters are invaluable documents shedding light not only on the genesis, publication and revision of his musical works, but also on a period when relations between Christians and Jews still had a chance to become harmonious, as Moses Mendelssohn, the imminent scholar and grandfather of the composer had advocated.

This edition will therefore be of great interest far beyond the circles of musicologists and music specialists. It will appeal to those who are interested in the history of culture and ideas and to those who perceive Mendelssohn and his family as representatives of a unique, diverse cultural epoch.

The complete correspondence shows that Mendelssohn not only went on to become one of the leading figures of German musical culture in the 1840s, but that he also maintained a network of musical contacts throughout Europe.

The edition of the complete letters
This scholarly-critical complete edition comprises 5,855 letters by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy. Previously only a small part of his correspondence had been published and made accessible to the public. The complete edition is based on Mendelssohn letters which have been compiled over decades by Rudolf Elvers as well as on international research carried out by an academic workgroup in Leipzig spearheaded by chief editors Helmut Loos and Wilhelm Seidel. They determined 500 additional letters hitherto unknown.

Versions of the letter texts have been compiled from a scholarly-critical analysis of the sources, their historical context has been discussed and comments on all points in need of explanation have been made.

This edition of the complete letters consists of 12 volumes and a CD-ROM. Each volume contains indices of mentioned individuals and institutions, compositions by Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy and Fanny Hensel as well as a register of place names and currencies. In this way one obtains an all-encompassing view of this unique historical cosmos.

The Complete edition has been produced to the highest standards in terms of layout, cover and binding. It is an ideal collector’s item for bibliophiles, providing an excellent means for studying the composer and the period in which he lived.

The CD-ROM forms a valuable addition to the printed volumes. It offers the complete printed edition in the form of pdf. files, thereby making its approximately 9,500 pages digitally accessible and enabling letters and the corresponding commentary to be read in parallel. All terms can be located quickly and conveniently via a full text search.
(The 12 volumes as well as the CD-ROM can only be purchased complete).

- German text only


The Editors
Helmut Loos is Professor of Musicology at the University of Leipzig. He specialises in the music of the 19th and 20th centuries, in particular the reception of Beethoven, sacred music and links between Germany and Central and Eastern Europe.

Wilhelm Seidel was professor at the universities of Heidelberg, Marburg and Leipzig. His publications are devoted to the temporal structure of music, music aesthetics in the 18th and 19th centuries and music of the 16th to 20th centuries, currently on Mozart and Mendelssohn.

SKU: CA.3810403

ISBN 9790007143978. Language: Latin.

At the age of just 20, Johann Christian Bach, the youngest son of Johann Sebastian Bach, the Kantor of St. Thomas's, left behind the Lutheran musical tradition of his family: he went to Italy, converted to Catholicism there and successfully composed operas for Turin, Milan and Naples. Frequently overlooked are the Catholic Bach's exquisite church music works, almost all written in the years 1757-1760, and which had a significant influence on his time in Italy. These include large-scale Vesper settings with impressive, symphonic-style instrumental introductions, sometimes anticipating Mozartian idioms. Bach's Domine ad adjuvandum me, an immediately captivating work, was written for the opening of Vespers; it seems to be carried along by a sense of euphoric purpose and a dynamic lightheartedness which positively radiates southern European temperament. The work is published in the authoritative Stuttgart Urtext edition, based on the rediscovered Hamburg autograph manuscript. Score available separately - see item CA.3810400.

SKU: CA.3113319

ISBN 9790007141127. Language: German.

The cantata Ich freue mich in dir was first performed during Bach's second year as Thomaskantor, on the 3rd day of Christmas, and belongs to the so-called annual cycle of chorale cantatas. Here the focus of the composition is the hymn of the same name by Philipp Ziegler, in which the first and final strophes were adopted, word for word, in the first and sixth movements of the cantata. The soprano, which carries the chorale, is supported by the conrnett (Zink), which already at this time had become a seldom-used instrument. The joyful, lively choral movement with instrumental interludes directly follows the first aria, and begins with a marked, ascending motive at the word Getrost! (safely). The oboes d'amore which accompany the alto lend the movement a special color. In the second aria (for soprano), Bach again shows himself to be the master of text interpretation. The words Wie lieblich klingt es in den Ohren are emphasized in an exchange between open strings and sixteenth note figures. Score and parts available separately - see item CA.3113300.

SKU: CA.3113305

ISBN 9790007161934. Language: German.

The cantata Ich freue mich in dir was first performed during Bach's second year as Thomaskantor, on the 3rd day of Christmas, and belongs to the so-called annual cycle of chorale cantatas. Here the focus of the composition is the hymn of the same name by Philipp Ziegler, in which the first and final strophes were adopted, word for word, in the first and sixth movements of the cantata. The soprano, which carries the chorale, is supported by the conrnett (Zink), which already at this time had become a seldom-used instrument. The joyful, lively choral movement with instrumental interludes directly follows the first aria, and begins with a marked, ascending motive at the word Getrost! (safely). The oboes d'amore which accompany the alto lend the movement a special color. In the second aria (for soprano), Bach again shows himself to be the master of text interpretation. The words Wie lieblich klingt es in den Ohren are emphasized in an exchange between open strings and sixteenth note figures. Score available separately - see item CA.3113300.

SKU: PE.EP73479

ISBN 9790577019888. 297 x 210mm inches. English.

At First Light was commissioned by Eric Bruskin, a resident of Philadelphia, USA, in memory of his mother. Eric had a longstanding enthusiasm for my work, and I was touched to be the person he approached for a task which is both a privilege and a daunting responsibility. In a sense, no music can ever measure up to the weight of love or the hope of consolation vested in it under such circumstances - but in memory I carry the deaths of both my own parents, and I was able to draw upon that. Eric's fondness for my Cello Sonata (itself written in memoriam) led him to ask that I include a solo 'cello part in the new work - but his attachment also to my polyphonic sacred choral writing meant that he wanted a centrepiece which would be both a showcase of that approach and the celebration of a life well lived. Therefore, the seven movements of At First Light arrange themselves as a series of slow meditations surrounding an exuberant 9-minute motet in which the lamenting cello falls temporarily silent.

Eric's Jewish faith meant that approaching an agnostic humanist brought up within the Anglican tradition was hardly free of problems! Gradually, though, I was able to win his approval for a collated mosaic of texts. This embraces some liturgical Latin (necessary for the motet) as the shared preserve of broad western culture in general, but balances it with a secular approach to loss, celebration, remembrance and the many shades of our mourning those whom we see no longer. Eric was adamant that he did not want the title Requiem; but what has emerged is still a form of semi-secular Requiem in all but name, taking its title instead from a phrase in the poem by Thomas Blackburn set as the third movement. This seemed to suggest succinctly how the loss of one very close to us is an awakening into an unfamiliar world where everything is changed. Following the exuberant central movement, the texts by the Lebanese-born Kahlil Gibran and the US, Kentuckian poet Wendell Berry first address the departed loved one directly, then place us within an imaginary funeral cortege, where the perennial and universal in human experience become personal without subscribing explicitly to any particular faith (or lack of it). The final text of all is a translation of a Hebraic prayer, requested and provided by Eric Bruskin, which serves to mirror its Latin counterpart heard at the outset.

Throughout, the lamenting cello represents a commentary on the experience articulated in the text. It evokes and, in a sense, tries to embrace and sanctify the individual existential journeys of the bereft, as they in turn seek to make their own sense of what the short-lived Second World War poet Alun Lewis called 'the unbearable beauty of the dead' (movement 5).

In a modern world hostage to ever greater menace, displacement, bloodshed and anguish, I hope fervently that this music not only brings a measure of solace to the person who commissioned it, but also makes its own small contribution to bailing out the sinking ship of humanity.

SKU: ST.EM13

ISBN 9790220218019.

CONTENTS
Alas! tarry but one half hour (SST )
As deadly serpents lurking (SA (or S) T )
As Vesta was descending (SSATTB )
Ay me, alas, hey ho (SST )
Come lets begin to revel At out (SSA (or T) )
Come sirrah, Jack ho (SSA (or T) )
Death hath deprived me (SS (or A) T (or A) TBB )
Donna il vostro bel viso (SSA (or T) )
Fa la. Now weep and sing (SA (or S) T (or B) )
Four arms, two necks, one wreathing (SSA )
Ha ha! this world doth pass (SST (or A) )
I bei ligustri e rose (SSA )
Jockey thine horn-pipeAs dull (SSA (or T) )
Late in my rash accounting (SSA (or T) )
Lord when I think (SSA (or T) )
No, though I shrink still (SSA )
Say, wanton, will you love me? (SSA (or T) )
Since Robin Hood (SA (or S) T )
Some men desire spouses (SSA )
Strike it up, Tabor (SST )
Tan ta ra cries Mars (SSA (or T) )
The Ape, the Monkey and Baboon (SSA )
The gods have heard my vows (SSA )
The nightingale, the organ of delight (SSA (or T) )
Though my carriage be but careless (SSA )
Tomorrow is the marriage day (SSA (or T) )
Upon a hill the bonny boy (SSA ).

SKU: GI.G-9963

UPC: 785147996309. English, Latin. Text Source: Attr. John Redford, ca. 1500&ndash,1547. Text by John Redford.