SKU: CF.YPS168

ISBN 9781491143988. UPC: 680160901487. 9 x 12 inches. Key: Eb major.

The Merry Kings is a clever arrangement of two Christmas songs about kings, We Three Kings and Good King Wenceslas. Arranger Andrew Balent has put some interesting harmonic twists on these old favorites, occasionally shifting into modal treatments of the carols. A fresh take on old classics for your next holiday concert.

SKU: LM.JJ19718

ISBN 9790230819718.

SKU: CF.PPS49

ISBN 9781491151938. UPC: 680160909438.

Exemplary is a mature musical piece for beginning bands. Even though only the first six notes of the Bb-major scale are used with simple rhythms, students and teachers will find many, fun musical challenges that provide opportunities for for growth. As the title suggests, performances of Exemplary should serve as a desirable model, be worthy of imitation, and should represent the absolute best in musicianship.
Exemplary is a mature musical piece for beginning bands. Even though only the first six notes of the Bb-major scale are used, and simple rhythms are used to compose this piece, it has many musical challenges that will enhance students’ musical growth. There are some very musical ideas and sections in this piece that should be explored. Just as this title suggests, Exemplary should serve as a desirable model, be worthy of imitation, and should represent the best possible example of its kind. If you describe something as exemplary, it should be extremely good. With all of these challenges, the piece also has some nice melodies and is fun to play.  Notes to the ConductorThere are marcato and legato styles, many dynamic markings (sometimes different between woodwinds, brass, and percussion) major and minor third intervals, and challenging beginning percussion writing (that should not be overplayed). Four-measure phrasing should be observed. When a crescendo occurs, it should connect to the next note without taking a breath. These are teachable concepts that will benefit the musicianship of the students and take them to a higher level of performance.  .

SKU: CF.YPS124

ISBN 9780825892608. UPC: 798408092603. 9 x 12 inches. Key: Eb major.

This hymn tune has been used in movies and television, most notably in the soundtrack of the film True Grit. Carl Strommen brings us a lush and reverent treatment of the Anthony Showalter hymn that will encourage the musical growth of your ensemble. Stunningly beautiful!

SKU: PR.164002720

UPC: 680160573042. 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.