SKU: HH.HH095-SOL

ISBN 9790708041337.

This music is written for pianists who are in love with their instrument. A relatively short work excellently suited for teaching.

SKU: HH.HH531-SOL

ISBN 9781914137280.

Mozartâ??s final three symphonies were composed, according to Mozartâ??s autograph VerzeichnüÃ?, in the space of a few weeks, from late June to early August 1788. During that year the 11-year-old Hummel was a resident pupil of Mozart and would have been a daily witness to the creation of these foundational works of the Western musical canon. There is an almost total lack of documentary evidence concerning the circumstances of these works, however, which has led to considerable speculation as to their origins, early performances and reception. There are three plausible scenarios for the genesis of these symphonies: that they were written for a series of subscription concerts scheduled for autumn 1788; that Mozart wrote them with the (unfulfilled) intention of publication as an opus; that they may have been prepared in advance of Mozartâ??s projected visit to London with his British friends the Storace family, Thomas Attwood and Michael Kelly (again unfulfilled). A contemporaray review in The Harmonicum (1823) of Hummelâ??s piano arrangements of these works notes, approvingly, that they show his perfect knowledge of the instrument and his nice [= fastidious] discrimination in selecting the most effective parts from the score in those places where the whole could not be taken.

SKU: HH.HH274-SOL

ISBN 9790708092261.

No arranger was named on the 1793 first edition of this piano version of the slow movement from Mozart’s last chamber work for strings, but Alfred Einstein was so impressed by the adaptation that in his Mozart biography he ventured, it is so masterly that one might even imagine the hand of Mozart to be present. The many dynamic, tempo and articulation markings added by the arranger not only make this fine music particularly suitable for fortepiano or clavichord, but will also be of interest to modern string players performing the original version.

SKU: HH.HH453-SOL

ISBN 9790708146605.

George Berg’s eight keyboard suites, Op. 5, were published in London around 1760, while the composer was travelling in Italy. They are his most varied and resourceful compositions, following generally in the tradition of Handel’s suites but adding stylistic elements culled from Italian, German and French music in a playfully eclectic manner. This sparkling, idiomatic music – barely known until now – is equally suitable for private enjoyment and concert use.

SKU: HH.HH463-SOL

ISBN 9790708146728.

Sheeles has a distinct gift for melody and for developing musical motives intensively and inventively, while always treating the keyboard in a highly varied and idiomatic manner. Each of his thirteen suites, all containing between three and five movements, follows an individual plan, mixing lengthy and sometimes ambitious movements with shorter, simpler ones. This is their first modern edition, and one that promises to win his music many admirers.

SKU: HH.HH565-SOL

ISBN 9790708185802.

The Marriage of Figaro was performed in Prague in Mozart’s presence, and on the 19th of January 1787 he gave an Academy at the National Theatre at which Symphony No. 38, since universally known under the soubriquet as the Prague, was first performed. Hummel’s arrangement of this symphony is dedicated to His Excellency Baron von Goethe.

SKU: HH.HH420-FSP

ISBN 9790708146216.

The Sonate concertante in G major for piano and flute was published posthumously, as the composer's oeuvre dernier, by S. A. Steiner in Vienna in 1810. The present edition is based on the printed copy in the Musikarchiv of the Stift Melk, Austria. The instrumental parts are of equal importance and of moderate difficulty, and the work maintains an effective balance between melodic, virtuoso and even slightly contrapuntal elements. This is a worthy addition to the Viennese classical flute repertoire.

SKU: HH.HH583-FSC

ISBN 9790708185987.

‘Shine Perishing Republic’ is perhaps the most anthologized of all the works by American poet Robinson Jeffers (1887–1962). Its Whitmanesque tone and rhetoric are here reflected in a sonata-like first movement form. Influenced by the paintings of Jackson Pollock, the composer wished to saturate his musical canvas with explosive, emotive events. ‘Evening Ebb’ is a nature scene. Musical metaphors – symmetrical chords, inversion structures and canons – are used to to suggest the qualities of sea and reflected sky described so beautifully in the poem. Paradoxically, in spite of these musical conceits, the music floats impressionistically, for the most part in stasis, only developing in a clear direction towards the end.

SKU: HH.HH569-SOL

ISBN 9790708185840.

Rigel’s keyboard music is a relatively neglected area within his oeuvre. This edition of his first published collection – a set of six sonatas for solo harpsichord or piano issued in 1767 – seeks to bring it to the attention of players and listeners. These highly idiomatic sonatas display the richness and pan-European character of Rigel’s musical inheritance. In them we hear a blend of influences drawn from the Italian tradition of galant keyboard music, the drama-filled world of the German symphony and the intimate milieu of French pièces de clavecin.

SKU: HH.HH582-FSC

ISBN 9790708185970.

Henry Holcombe (1690–1756), born in Chester as the son of a silk weaver, became between 1720 and his death one of the leading English composers in small-scale forms, mainly vocal but also instrumental. His lifelong interest in Italian language and music led him to produce a charming set of twelve Italian canzonets (published in 1753). These songs for high voice, male or female, are unusual for their genre in drawing their texts from arias found in operatic librettos rather than from purpose-written poetry. They are well suited to both domestic and concert use. Individual canzonets will make excellent ‘encore’ items, while short sequences of them will provide excellent material for solo recitals.

SKU: HH.HH450-SOL

ISBN 9790708146575.

At the heart of George Berg’s oeuvre are his seven collections of keyboard music. His sonatinas for harpsichord were a by-product of his teaching, appearing in three volumes between 1759 and 1762. Technically fairly simple, these are lively, inventive and finely polished works. Berg’s sonatinas are as well suited to the piano as the harpsichord sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti from which they draw so much inspiration, provided that the player makes sparing (or no) use of the sustaining pedal and avoids over-fussy dynamic variation.

SKU: HH.HH454-SOL

ISBN 9790708146612.

George Berg’s eight keyboard suites, Op. 5, were published in London around 1760, while the composer was travelling in Italy. They are his most varied and resourceful compositions, following generally in the tradition of Handel’s suites but adding stylistic elements culled from Italian, German and French music in a playfully eclectic manner. This sparkling, idiomatic music – barely known until now – is equally suitable for private enjoyment and concert use.